Why Regime Change in Libya?

By Ismael Hossein-zadeh
Global Research
June 20, 2011

In light of the brutal death and destruction wrought on Libya by the relentless US/NATO bombardment, the professed claims of “humanitarian concerns” as grounds for intervention can readily be dismissed as a blatantly specious imperialist ploy in pursuit of “regime change” in that country.

There is undeniable evidence that contrary to the spontaneous, unarmed and peaceful protest demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, the rebellion in Libya has been nurtured, armed and orchestratedlargely from abroad, in collaboration with expat opposition groups and their local allies at home. Indeed, evidence shows that plans of “regime change” in Libya were drawn long before the insurgency actually started in Benghazi; it has all the hallmarks of a well-orchestrated civil war [1].

It is very tempting to seek the answer to the question “why regime change in Libya?” in oil/energy. While oil is undoubtedly a concern, it falls short of a satisfactory explanation because major Western oil companies were already extensively involved in the Libyan oil industry. Indeed, since Gaddafi relented to the US-UK pressure in 1993 and established “normal” economic and diplomatic relations with these and other Western countries, major US and European oil companies struck quite lucrative deals with the National Oil Corporation of Libya.

So, the answer to the question “why the imperialist powers want to do away with Gaddafi” has to go beyond oil, or the laughable “humanitarian concerns.” Perhaps the question can be answered best in the light of the following questions: why do these imperialist powers also want to overthrow Hugo Cavez of Venezuela, Fidel Castro (and/or his successors) of Cuba, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Rafael Correa Delgado of Ecuador,Kim Jong-il of North Korea, Bashar Al-assad of Syriaand Evo Morales of Bolivia? Or, why did they overthrow Mohammad Mossadeq of Iran, Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, Kusno Sukarno of Indonesia, Salvador Allende of Chile, Sandinistas in Nicaragua,Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haitiand Manuel Zelaya in Honduras?

What does Gaddafi have in common with these nationalist/populist leaders? The question is of course rhetorical and the answer is obvious: like them Gaddafi is guilty of insubordination to the proverbial godfather of the world: US imperialism, and its allies. Like them, he has committed the cardinal sin of challenging the unbridled reign of global capital, of not following the economic “guidelines” of the captains of global finance, that is, of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and World Trade Organization; as well as of refusing to join US military alliances in the region. Also like other nationalist/populist leaders, he advocates social safety net (or welfare state) programs—not for giant corporations, as is the case in imperialist countries, but for the people in need.

This means that the criminal agenda of Messrs Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, and their complicit allies to overthrow or kill Mr. Gaddafi and other “insubordinate” proponents of welfare state programs abroad is essentially part of the same evil agenda of dismantling such programs at home. While the form, the context and the means of destruction maybe different, the thrust of the relentless attacks on the living standards of the Libyan, Iranian, Venezuelan or Cuban peoples are essentially the same as the equally brutal attacks on the living conditions of the poor and working people in the US, UK, France and other degenerate capitalist countries. In a subtle (but unmistakable) way they are all part of an ongoing unilateral class warfare on a global scale—whether they are carried out by military means and bombardments, or through the apparently “non-violent” processes of judicial or legislative means does not make a substantial difference as far as the nature or the thrust of the attack on people’s lives or livelihoods are concerned.

In their efforts to consolidate the reign of big capital worldwide, captains of global finance use a variety of methods. The preferred method is usually non-military, that is, the neoliberal strategies of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP's), carried out by representatives of big business disguised as elected officials, or by the multilateral institutions such as the IMF and the WTO. This is what is currently happening in the debt- and deficit-ridden economies of the United States and Europe.But if a country like Libya (or Venezuela or Iran or Cuba) does not go along with the neoliberal agenda of “structural adjustments,” of outsourcing and privatization and of allowing their financial system to be tied to the network of global banking cartel, then the military option is embarked upon to carry out the neoliberal agenda.

The powerful interests of global capitalism do not seem to feel comfortable to dismantle New Deal economics, Social Democratic reforms and welfare state programs in the core capitalist countries while people in smaller, less-developed countries such as Libya, Venezuela or Cuba enjoy strong, state-sponsored social safety net programs such as free or heavily-subsidized education and health care benefits. Indeed, guardians of the worldwide market mechanism have always been intolerant of any “undue” government intervention in the economic affairs of any country in the world. “Regimented economies,” declared President Harry Truman in a speech at Baylor University (1947), were the enemy of free enterprise, and “unless we act, and act decisively,” he claimed, those regimented economies would become “the pattern of the next century.” To fend off that danger, Truman urged that “the whole world should adopt the American system.” The system of free enterprise, he went on, “can survive in America only if it becomes a world system” [2].

Before it was devastated by the imperialist-orchestrated civil war and destruction, Libya had the highest living standard in Africa. Using the United Nations statistics, Jean-Paul Pougala of Dissident Voice reports,

“The country now ranks 53rd on the HDI [Human Development Index] index, better than all other African countries and also better than the richer and Western-backed Saudi Arabia. . . . Although the media often refers to youth unemployment of 15 to 30 percent, it does not mention that in Libya, in contrast to other countries, all have their subsistence guaranteed. . . . The government provides all citizens with free health care and [has] achieved high coverage in the most basic health areas. . . . The life expectancy rose to 74.5 years and is now the highest in Africa. . . . The infant mortality rate declined to 17 deaths per 1,000 births and is not nearly as high as in Algeria (41) and also lower than in Saudi Arabia (21).

“The UNDP [United Nations Development Program] certified that Libya has also made ‘a significant progress in gender equality,’ particularly in the fields of education and health, while there is still much to do regarding representation in politics and the economy. With a relative low ‘index of gender inequality’ the UNDP places the country in the Human Development Report 2010 concerning gender equality at rank 52 and thus also well ahead of Egypt (ranked 108), Algeria (70), Tunisia (56), Saudi Arabia (ranked 128) and Qatar (94)” [3].

It is true that after resisting the self-centered demands and onerous pressures from Western powers for more than thirty years, Gaddafi relented in 1993 and opened the Libyan economy to Western capital, carried out a number of neoliberal economic reforms, and granted lucrative business/investment deals to major oil companies of the West.

But, again, like the proverbial godfather, US/European imperialism requires total, unconditional subordination; half-hearted, grudging compliance with the global agenda of imperialism is not enough. To be considered a real “ally,” or a true “client state,” a country has to grant the US the right to “guide” its economic, geopolitical and foreign policies, that is, to essentially forgo its national sovereignty. Despite some economic concessions since the early 1990s, Gaddafi failed this critical test of “full compliance” with the imperialist designs in the region.

For example, he resisted joining a US/NATO-sponsored military alliance in the region. Libya (along with Syria) are the only two Mediterranean nations and the sole remaining Arab states that are not subordinated to U.S. and NATO designs for control of the Mediterranean Sea Basin and the Middle East. Nor has Libya (or Syria) participated in NATO's almost ten-year-old Operation Active Endeavor naval patrols and exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and neither is a member of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue military partnership which includes most regional countries: Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania [4].

To the chagrin of US imperialism, Libya’s Gaddafi also refused to join the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), designed to cntrol valuable resources in Africa, safeguard trade and investment markets in the region, and contain or evict China from North Africa. “When the US formed AFRICOM in 2007, some 49 countries signed on to the US military charter for Africa but one country refused: Libya. Such a treacherous act by Libya’s leader Moummar Qaddafi would only sow the seeds for a future conflict down the road in 2011” [5].

Furthermore, by promoting trade, development and industrialization projects on a local, national, regional or African level, Gaddafi was viewed as an obstacle to theWestern powers’ strategies of unhinderedtrade and development projects on a global level. For example, Gaddafi’s Libya played a leading role in “connecting the entire [African] continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low cost connection was made available across the continent, including in rural areas” [3].

The idea of launching a pan-African system of technologically advanced network of telecommunication began in the early 1990s, “when 45 African nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual $500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same country. . . . An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of $400 million and the continent no longer had to pay a $500 million annual lease” [3].

In pursuit of financing this project, the African nations frequently pleaded with the IMF and the World Bank for assistance. As the empty promises of these financial giants dragged on for 14 years,

“Gaddafi put an end to [the] futile pleas to the western ‘benefactors’ with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put $300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added $50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further $27 million – and that’s how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.
“China and Russia followed suit and shared their technology and helped launch satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second African satellite was launched in July 2010. The first totally indigenously built satellite and manufactured on African soil, in Algeria, is set for 2020. This satellite is aimed at competing with the best in the world, but at ten times less the cost, a real challenge."

“This is how a symbolic gesture of a mere $300 million changed the life of an entire continent. Gaddafi’s Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of $500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come and in an exponential manner, thereby helping maintain an occult system in order to plunder the continent”[3].

Architects of global finance, represented by the imperialist governments of the West, also viewed Gaddafi as a spoiler in the area of international or global money and banking. The forces of global capital tend to prefer a uniform, contiguous, or borderless global market to multiple sovereign markets at the local, national, regional or continental levels. Not only Gaddafi’s Libya maintained public ownership of its own central bank, and the authority to create its own national money, but it also worked assiduously to establish an African Monetary Fund, an African Central Bank, and an African Investment Bank.


The $30 billion of the Libyan money frozen by the Obama administration belong to the Central Bank of Libya, which

“had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which would add the finishing touches to the African Federation – the African Investment Bank in Syrte (Libya), the establishment in 2011 of the African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaoundé (Cameroon) . . ., and the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria, which when it starts printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc [the French currency] through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi."

“The African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only $25 billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it swallow questionable privatization like forcing African countries to move from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17 December 2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western countries to join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to African nations” [3].

Western powers also viewed Gaddafi as an obstacle to their imperial strategies for yet another reason: standing in the way of their age-old policies of “divide and rule.” To counter Gaddafi’s relentless efforts to establish a United States of Africa, the European Union tried to create the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM) region. “North Africa somehow had to be cut off from the rest of Africa, using the old tired racist clichés of the 18th and 19th centuries,which claimed that Africans of Arab origin were more evolved and civilized than the rest of the continent. This failed because Gaddafi refused to buy into it. He soon understood what game was being played when only a handful of African countries were invited to join the Mediterranean grouping without informing the African Union but inviting all 27 members of the European Union.” Gaddafi also refused to buy into other imperialist-inspired/driven groupings in Africa such as ECOWAS, COMESA, UDEAC, SADC and the Great Maghreb, “which never saw the light of day thanks to Gaddafi who understood what was happening” [3].

Gaddafi further earned the wrath of Western powers for striking extensive trade and investment deals with BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), especially with China. According to Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce, China’s contracts in Libya (prior to imperialism’s controlled demolition of that country) numbered no less than 50 large projects, involving contracts in excess of $18 billion. Even a cursory reading of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) strategic briefings shows that a major thrust of its mission is containment of China. “In effect, what we are witnessing here,” points out Patrick Henningsten, “is the dawn of a New Cold War between the US-EURO powers and China. This new cold war will feature many of the same elements of the long and protracted US-USSR face-off we saw in the second half of the 20th century. It will take place off shore, in places like Africa, South America, Central Asia and through old flashpoints like Korea and the Middle East” [5].

It is obvious (from this brief discussion) that Gaddafi’s sin for being placed on imperialism’s death row consists largely of the challenges he posed to the free reign of Western capital in the region, of his refusal to relinquish Libya’s national sovereignty to become another unconditional “client state” of Western powers. His removal from power is therefore designed to eliminate all “barriers” to the unhindered mobility of the US/European capital in the region by installing a more pliant regime in Libya.

Gaddafi’s removal from power would serve yet another objective of US/European powers: to shorten or spoil the Arab Spring by derailing their peaceful protests, containing their non-violent revolutions and sabotaging their aspirations for self-determination. Soon after being caught by surprise by the glorious uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the imperialist powers (including the mini Zionist imperialism in Palestine) embarked on “damage control.” In pursuit of this objective, they adopted three simultaneous strategies. The first strategy was to half-heartedly“support” the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia (of course, once they became unstoppable) in order to control them—hence, the military rule in those countries following the departure of Mubarak from Cairo and Ben Ali from Tunis. The second strategy of containment has been support and encouragement for the brutal crackdown of other spontaneous and peaceful uprisings in countries ruled by “client regimes,” for example, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. And the third policy of sabotaging the Arab Spring has been to promote civil war and orchestrate chaos in countries such as Libya, Syria and Iran.

In its early stages of development, capitalism promoted nation-state and/or national sovereignty in order to free itself from the constraints of the church and feudalism. Now that the imperatives of the highly advanced but degenerate global finance capital require unhindered mobility in a uniform or borderless world, national sovereignty is considered problematic—especially in places like Libya, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries that are not ruled by imperialism’s “client states.” Why? Because unhindered global mobility of capital requires doing away with social safety net or welfare state programs; it means doing away with public domain properties or public sector enterprises and bringing them under the private ownership of the footloose-and-fancy-free global capital.

This explains why the corporate media, political pundits and other mouthpieces of imperialism are increasing talking about Western powers’ “responsibility to protect,” by which they mean that these powers have a responsibility to protect the Libyan (or Iranian or Venezuelan or Syrian or Cuban or ... ) citizens from their “dictatorial” rulers by instigating regime change and promoting “democracy” there. It further means that, in pursuit of this objective, the imperialist powers should not be bound by “constraints” of national sovereignty because, they argue, “universal democratic rights take primacy over national sovereignty considerations.”In a notoriously selective fashion, this utilitarian use of the “responsibility to protect” does not apply to nations or peoples ruled by imperialism’s client states such as Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. [6]

This also means that the imperialist war against peoples and states such as Libya and Venezuela is essentially part of the same class war against peoples and states in the belly of the beast, that is, in the United States and Europe. In every instance or place, whether at home or abroad, whether in Libya or California or Wisconsin or Greece, the thrust of the relentless global class war is the same: to do away with subsistence-level guarantees, or social safety net programs, and redistribute the national or global resources in favor of the rich and powerful, especially the powerful interests vested in the finance capital and the military capital.

There is no question that global capitalism has thus woven together the fates and fortunes of the overwhelming majority of the world population in an increasingly intensifying struggle for subsistence and survival. No one can tell when this majority of world population (the middle, lower-middle, poor and working classes) would come to the realization that their seemingly separate struggles for economic survival are essentially part and parcel of the same struggle against the same class enemies, the guardians of world capitalism. One thing is clear, however: only when they come to such a liberating realization, join forces together in a cross-border, global uprising against the forces of world capitalism, and seek to manage their economies independent of profitability imperatives of capitalist production—only then can they break free from the shackles of capitalism and control their future in a coordinated, people-centered mode of production, distribution and consumption.

NATO War Crimes in Libya

Editor' NOTE:

The reported NATO bombing of Colonel Gadhafi's son's compound has apparently resulted in the deaths of his youngest son and several grandchildren. NATO insists that it had excellent reason to believe that the home was part of the Libyan dictator's military command and control system. This is the euphemistic phrase now being used to justify attacks on what are known to an extremely high degree of certainty to be civilian non-combatants.

Even if NATO had actionable intelligence (a morally bankrupt term) that only Colonel Gadhafi was present in the compound (not a rational assumption however), the UN resolution currently in force calls only for a "no-fly" zone and the protection of Libyan civilians. Clearly the bombing of the Gadhafi compound is the very opposite of what the UN Security Council intended when it passed UNSC resolution 1973. The latest NATO attack proves that the intention is clearly to kill Colonel Gadhafi no matter how many innocent non-combatant civilians are murdered in the process.

It is clear that the "no-fly" zone justification for NATO and other allied intervention represented a ruse by which the Western powers intended to initiate regime change in Libya and the removal of Colonel Gadhafi despite their protestations to the contrary.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert


Gadhafi’s youngest son killed but Libyan leader survives NATO missile strike, spokesman says


Associated Press, through the Washington Post World
Published: April 30

TRIPOLI, Libya — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli on Saturday, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed, a government spokesman said.
The strike, which came hours after Gadhafi called for a cease-fire 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 Gadhafi’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 Gadhafi’s forces.
The attack struck the house of Gadhafi’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, referring questions to NATO.
The alliance acknowledged that it had struck a “command and control building in the Bab al-Azizya neighborhood” Saturday evening, but it could not confirm the death of Gadhafi’s son and insisted all its targets are military in nature and linked to Gadhafi’s systematic attacks on the population.
The commander of the NATO operation, Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, said he was aware of unconfirmed reports that some Gadhafi family members may have been killed and he regretted “all loss of life, specially the innocent civilians being harmed as a result of the ongoing conflict.”
Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, 29, was the youngest son of Gadhafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, who had been touted as a reformist before the uprising began in mid-February. The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.
Gadhafi’s children have 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.
Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane, according to Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.
“The leader himself is in good health,” Ibrahim said. “He was not harmed. The wife is also in good health.”
Ibrahim would not give the names of the three children killed, except to say they were nieces and nephews of Seif al-Arab and that they were younger than 12. He said they are not releasing the names yet to protect the privacy of the family.
He said the compound that was hit was in the Garghour neighborhood.
“It seems there was intelligence that was leaked. They knew about something. They expected him for some reason. But the target was very clear, very, very clear. And the neighborhood, yes of course, because the leader family has a place there, you could expect of course it would be guarded, but it is a normal neighborhood. Normal Libyans live there,” he said.

A Fire Which Could Burn Everyone

"Reflections of Fidel"
By: Fidel Castro Ruiz
Havana. April 28, 2011
(Taken from CubaDebate)

ONE can be in agreement or not with Gaddafi’s political ideas, but nobody has the right to question the existence of Libya as an independent state and a member of the United Nations.

The world has still not accomplished what, from my point of view, constitutes an elemental question for the survival of our species today: the access of all peoples to the material resources of this planet. There is none other within the solar system which possesses the most elemental conditions of life as we know it.

The United States has always tried to be a melting pot of all races, creeds and nations: Caucasians, Africans, Asians, Indian and people of mixed race, with no differences other than those of master and slave, rich and poor; but all within the limits of its borders: Canada to the north, Mexico to the south, the Atlantic to the east, and the Pacific to the west. Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii were simple historical accidents.

The complicated aspect of the matter is that it is not about a noble desire of those fighting for a better world, which is as worthy of respect as the religious beliefs of the peoples. Just a few types of radioactive isotopes emanating from enriched uranium consumed by electronuclear plants in relatively small quantities – given that they do not exist in nature – would suffice to put an end to the fragile existence of our species.

Burying those growing volumes of nuclear waste under sarcophaguses of cement and steel, is one of the greatest challenges of technology.

Incidents such as the Chernobyl accident or the Japanese earthquake have exposed those mortal risks.

The issue I wish to approach today is not that, but the shock with which I observed yesterday, via Walter Martínez’ Dossier program on Venezuelan television, the footage of the meeting between Robert Gates, chief of the Department of Defense, and British Defense Minister Liam Fox, who visited the United States to discuss the criminal war unleashed by NATO on Libya. It was almost hard to believe, the British minister took the Oscar; he was a bundle of nerves, he was tense, he spoke like a madman, he gave the impression that he was spitting out words.

Of course, first he arrived at the Pentagon entrance, where a smiling Gates was waiting for him. The flags of the two countries, that of the former colonial British Empire and that of its stepchild, the empire of the United States, fluttered on high on both sides while the anthems were played. The right hand on the chest, the rigorous and solemn military salute of the host country’s ceremony. That was Act I. After that the two ministers entered the U.S. Defense department. One would imagine that they talked at length given the footage I saw when each one returned with a speech in his hands, doubtless previously drafted.

The framework of this whole spectacle was constituted by military personnel. From the left hand angle one could see a young soldier, tall, slim, seemingly red-haired, shaven head, a cap with a black visor rammed on almost to his neck, presenting a rifle with a bayonet, unblinking and apparently not breathing, the very stamp of a soldier ready to fire a bullet or a nuclear missile with a destructive capacity of 100,000 tons of TNT. Gates spoke with the smile and naturalness of a lord and master. The Briton, on the other hand, did so in the way that I detailed.

It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen; he exhibited hatred, frustration, rage and threatening language toward the Libyan leader, demanding his unconditional surrender. He seemed to be indignant because NATO’s powerful aircraft had been unable to crush the Libyan resistance in 72 hours.

He only needed to exclaim, "Blood, toil, tears and sweat!" like Winston Churchill did when calculating the price to be paid by his country for fighting Nazi aircraft. In this case the Nazi-fascist role is being played by NATO with its thousands of bombing missions with the most modern fighter planes that the world has ever known.

The last straw was the U.S. government decision authorizing the use of drone aircraft to kill Libyan men, women and children, as in Afghanistan, thousands of kilometers distant from Western Europe, but this time against an Arab and African people, right in front of the eyes of hundreds of millions of Europeans and no less than in the name of the United Nations.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated yesterday that such acts of war were illegal and exceeded the framework of the United Nations Security Council agreements. (Editor: This is true)

The gross attacks on the Libyan people, which are acquiring a Nazi-fascist nature, could be utilized against any Third World nation.

The resistance that Libya has put up really amazes me.

Now that bellicose organization is dependent on Gaddafi. If he resists and does not comply with its demands, he will go down in history as one of the great figures of the Arab countries.

NATO is fanning a fire which could burn everyone!

The Colonial "Axis of Evil" prepares for the invasion of Libya

U.S., Britain and France step up war plans

April 15, 2011
By Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition

The stage is now set for the imperialist invasion of Libya.

The former colonizing and enslaving powers of Africa—Britain, France and the United States—have committed themselves to the ouster of the Libyan government.

Frustrated that the NATO bombing campaign has failed to secure a victory for the anti-Gadaffi rebels, the main NATO powers are preparing a dramatic escalation of the war. They hope the threat of escalation will convince Gadaffi and his associates to leave power as the threat of a land invasion in June 1999 led Milosevic to capitulate and allow NATO forces to take over Kosovo. Or, as an alternative, they will launch a military invasion of the country.

“… [I]t is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi in power,” wrote Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, and David Cameron in a joint article published simultaneously in the New York Times and several European newspapers on April 15.

Their stated pretext to “protect civilians” in Libya’s civil war (Resolution 1973 passed by the U.N. Security Council on March 17 with Russia, China, Germany, Brazil, and India abstaining) has given way in this latest public proclamation to their actual intention to replace the Libyan government with a new proxy regime in the country that holds the largest oil reserves in the African continent.

“No political settlement in which the dictator remains in place will work. The West and its partners must be ready to maintain political, economic and military pressure until he is gone,” states the New York Times in its April 15 lead editorial.

Do not be fooled by the anti-dictatorial motivation of the New York Times. When the CIA and British intelligence overthrew Iran’s democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh and replaced it with the dictatorship of the Shah, the New York Times editorialized: “Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost to be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism.”
Mossadegh had earned the label of “fanatic” because he had dared nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (aka British Petroleum) and use the profits of Iran’s oil to bring the country out of immense poverty.

All the targets of imperialist invasion and “regime change” strategies are fully demonized prior to aggression. From Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, the Congo in 1961, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 to Iraq in 2003, the process of selective demonization of leaders is a precursor to aggression. The motives of the invaders are pure and noble. The bombs they drop are smart. They only kill bad people who are the enemies of freedom.

At these moments, the money-gouging corrupt politicians of both sides of the aisle in Washington, D.C.—from Tea Party Republicans to most Democratic Party politicians—mainly put aside all differences to join the chorus of the holy condemning the targeted demon as the troops are assembled, the war planes take to the skies and the cruise missiles crash into their targets. They are patriotic to the Empire and realize that their privileged and pampered employment as the “people’s representatives” can be quickly ended if they resolutely defy the war makers and their mass media propaganda machine. They, too, can be demonized if they step too far out of line.

The people of the United States do not want this war. They want the war in Afghanistan and Iraq—two other wars for Empire—ended now. They can see through the lies of the government that says the country is so broke that tens of thousands of teachers, nurses and other public sector workers must be fired. Yet the same government, pursuing a global imperialist foreign policy that benefits the biggest banks and oil corporations, has limitless funds to invade and occupy the lands of other working people.

Paul Craig Roberts Says War In Libya is About China

'US To Recoup Libya Oil From China'

Interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of US Treasury

by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Press TV
April 17, 2011


Press TV has interviewed Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of US Treasury from Panama City, who gives his insight on the revolution in Libya and why US President Barack Obama needs to overthrow Qaddafi when no other US presidents did.

Press TV: Russia has criticized NATO for going far beyond its UN mandate. In other news a joint Op Ed is going to be written by Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy who have said that “leaving Qaddafi in power would be an unconscionable betrayal to the Libyan people”.

We do know that the mandate does not call for regime change; the Obama administration has been saying they are not in there for regime change; but things seem a little different now don't they?

Roberts: Yes they do. First of all, notice that the protests in Libya are different from the ones in Egypt or Yemen or Bahrain or Tunisia and the difference is that this is an armed rebellion.

There are more differences: another is that these protests originated in the eastern part of Libya where the oil is - they did not originate in the capital city. And we have heard from the beginning credible reports that the CIA is involved in the protests,  (Webster Tarpley also makes this point here) and there have been a large number of press reports that the CIA has sent back to Libya its Libyan asset to head up the Libyan rebellion.

In my opinion, what this is about is to eliminate China from the Mediterranean. China has extensive energy investments and construction investments in Libya. They are looking to Africa as a future energy source.

The US is countering this by organizing the United States African Command (USAC), which Qaddafi refused to join. So that's the second reason for the Americans to want Qaddafi out.

And the third reason is that Libya controls part of the Mediterranean coast and it's not in American hands.

Press TV: Who are the revolutionaries. The US say they don't know who they're dealing with, but considering the CIA is on the ground in contact with revolutionaries - Who are the people under whom Libya will function in any post-Qaddafi era?

Roberts: Whether or not Libya functions under “revolutionaries” depends if the CIA wins - we don't know that yet. As you said earlier, the UN resolution puts constraints on what the European and American forces can achieve in Libya. They can have a no fly zone, but they are not supposed to be in there fighting together with the rebels.

But of course the CIA is. So we do have these violations of the UN resolution. If NATO, which is now the cover for the “world community,” succeeds in overthrowing Qaddafi, the next target will be Syria. Syria has already been demonized.

Why are they targeting Syria? - Because the Russians have a very large naval base in Syria. And it gives the Russian navy a presence in the Mediterranean; the US and NATO do not want that. If there is success in overthrowing Qaddafi, Syria is next.

Already, they are blaming Iran for Syria and Libya. Iran is a major target because it is an independent state that is not a puppet of the Western colonialists.

Press TV: With regards to the expansionist agenda of the West, when the UN mandate on Libya was debated in the UN Security Council, Russia did not veto it. Surely Russia must see this expansionist policy of the US, France and Britain.

Roberts: Yes they must see that; and the same for China. It's a greater threat to China because it has 50 major investment projects in eastern Libya. So the question is why did Russia and China abstain rather than veto and block? We don't know the answer.

Possibly the countries are thinking to let the Americans get further over- extended, or they may not have wanted to confront the US with a military or diplomatic position and have an onslaught of Western propaganda against them. We don't know the reasons, but we know they did abstain because they did not agree with the policy, and they continue to criticize it.

Press TV: A sizeable portion of Qaddafi's assets have been frozen in the US as well as some other countries. We also know that the Libyan revolutionaries have set up a central bank and that they have started limited production of oil and they are dealing with American and other Western firms. It begs the question that we've never seen something like this happen in the middle of a revolution. Don't you find that bizarre?

Roberts: Yes it's very bizarre and very suggestive. It brings back the fact of all the reports that the CIA is the originator of this so-called revolt and protest and is fomenting it and controlling it in a way that excludes China from its own Libyan oil investments.

In my opinion, what is going on is comparable to what the US and Britain did to Japan in the 1930s. When they cut Japan off from oil, from rubber, from minerals; that was the origin of World War II in the pacific. And now the Americans and the British are doing the same thing to China.

The difference is that China has nuclear weapons and it also has a stronger economy than do the Americans. And so the Americans are taking a very high risk not only with themselves, but with the rest of the world. The entire world is now at stake on American over-reach; American hubris - the drive for American hegemony over the world is driving the rest of the world into a World War.

Press TV: In the context of America's expansionist policies, how far do you think the US will stretch beyond the UN mandate? Are we going to see boots on the ground?

Roberts: Most likely - unless they can find some way of defeating Qaddafi without that. Ever since we've had Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and now Obama, what we've learned is law means nothing to the executive branch in the US. They don't obey our own laws; they don't obey international law; they violate all the civil liberties and buried the principal of habeas corpus, no crime without intent, and the ability for a defendant to be legally represented.

They don't pay any attention to law so they're not going to pay any attention to the UN. The UN is an American puppet organization and Washington will use it as a cover. So, yes, if they cannot run Qaddafi out they will put troops on the ground - that's why we have the French and the British involved. We're using the French elsewhere in Africa also; we use the British in Afghanistan - they're puppets.

These countries are not independent. Sarkozy doesn't report to the French people - he reports to Washington. The British PM doesn't report to the English people he reports to Washington. These are puppet rulers of an empire; they have nothing to do with their own people and we put them in office.

Press TV: So these other countries would welcome having NATO troops on the ground?

Roberts: Of course. They are in the CIAs pocket. It's a CIA operation, not a legitimate protest of the Libyan people. It's an armed rebellion that has no support in the capital city. It's taking place in the east where the oil is and is directed at China.

Press TV: Where do you see the situation headed? There seems to be a rift between NATO countries with Britain and France wanting to increase the momentum of these air strikes, but the US saying no, there is no need.

Roberts: The rift is not real. The rift is just part of the cover, just part of the propaganda. Qaddafi has been ruling for 40 years - he goes back to Gamal Abdel Nasser (before Anwar Sadat) who wanted to give independence to Egypt.

He (Qaddafi) was never before called a brutal dictator that has to be removed. No other president has ever said Qaddafi has to go. Not even Ronald Reagan who actually bombed Qaddafi's compound. But all of a sudden he has to go. Why?

Because he's blocking the US African Command, he controls part of the Mediterranean and he has let China in to find its energy needs for the future. Washington is trying to cripple its main rival, China, by denying China energy. That's what this is really about; a reaction by the US to China’s penetration of Africa.

If the US was concerned about humanitarianism, it wouldn't be killing all these people in Afghanistan and Pakistan with their drones and military strikes. Almost always it's civilians that are killed. And the US is reluctant to issue apologies about any of it. They say we thought we were killing Taliban or some other made-up enemy.

Press TV: Who will benefit from all of this other than the US? The other countries that comply with US wishes - What do they stand to gain from this?

Roberts: We are only talking about NATO countries, the American puppet states. Britain, France, Italy, Germany, all belong to the American empire. We've had troops stationed in Germany since 1945. You're talking about 66 years of American occupation of Germany. The Americans have military bases in Italy - how is that an independent country? France was somewhat independent until Washington put Sarkozy in power. So they all do what they're told.

Washington wants to rule Russia, China, Iran, and Africa, all of South America. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout) Washington wants hegemony over the world. That's what the word hegemony means. And Washington will pursue it at all costs.

CIA Operative Head of Libyan Rebels

A CIA Commander For Libyan Rebels

By Patrick Martin

March 28, 2011 "WSWS" -- The Libyan National Council, the Benghazi-based group that speaks for the rebel forces fighting the Gaddafi regime, has appointed a long-time CIA collaborator to head its military operations. The selection of Khalifa Hifter, a former colonel in the Libyan army, was reported by McClatchy Newspapers Thursday and the new military chief was interviewed by a correspondent for ABC News on Sunday night.

Hifter’s arrival in Benghazi was first reported by Al Jazeera on March 14, followed by a flattering portrait in the virulently pro-war British tabloid the Daily Mail on March 19. The Daily Mail described Hifter as one of the “two military stars of the revolution” who “had recently returned from exile in America to lend the rebel ground forces some tactical coherence.” The newspaper did not refer to his CIA connections.

McClatchy Newspapers published a profile of Hifter on Sunday. Headlined “New Rebel Leader Spent Much of Past 20 years in Suburban Virginia,” the article notes that he was once a top commander for the Gaddafi regime, until “a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s.”

Hifter then went over to the anti-Gaddafi opposition, eventually emigrating to the United States, where he lived until two weeks ago when he returned to Libya to take command in Benghazi.

The McClatchy profile concluded, “Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, DC.” It cited a friend who “said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.”

To those who can read between the lines, this profile is a thinly disguised indication of Hifter’s role as a CIA operative. How else does a high-ranking former Libyan military commander enter the United States in the early 1990s, only a few years after the Lockerbie bombing, and then settle near the US capital, except with the permission and active assistance of US intelligence agencies? Hifter actually lived in Vienna, Virginia, about five miles from CIA headquarters in Langley, for two decades.

The agency was very familiar with Hifter’s military and political work. A Washington Post report of March 26, 1996 describes an armed rebellion against Gaddafi in Libya and uses a variant spelling of his name. The article cites witnesses to the rebellion who report that “its leader is Col. Khalifa Haftar, of a contra-style group based in the United States called the Libyan National Army.”

The comparison is to the “contra” terrorist forces financed and armed by the US government in the 1980s against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra scandal, which rocked the Reagan administration in 1986-87, involved the exposure of illegal US arms sales to Iran, with the proceeds used to finance the contras in defiance of a congressional ban. Congressional Democrats covered up the scandal and rejected calls to impeach Reagan for sponsoring the flagrantly illegal activities of a cabal of former intelligence operatives and White House aides.

A 2001 book, Manipulations africaines, published by Le Monde diplomatique, traces the CIA connection even further back, to 1987, reporting that Hifter, then a colonel in Gaddafi’s army, was captured fighting in Chad in a Libyan-backed rebellion against the US-backed government of Hissène Habré. He defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his own militia, which operated in Chad until Habré was overthrown by a French-supported rival, Idriss Déby, in 1990.

According to this book, “the Haftar force, created and financed by the CIA in Chad, vanished into thin air with the help of the CIA shortly after the government was overthrown by Idriss Déby.” The book also cites a Congressional Research Service report of December 19, 1996 that the US government was providing financial and military aid to the LNSF and that a number of LNSF members were relocated to the United States.

This information is available to anyone who conducts even a cursory Internet search, but it has not been reported by the corporate-controlled media in the United States, except in the dispatch from McClatchy, which avoids any reference to the CIA. None of the television networks, busily lauding the “freedom fighters” of eastern Libya, has bothered to report that these forces are now commanded by a longtime collaborator of US intelligence services.
Nor have the liberal and “left” enthusiasts of the US-European intervention in Libya taken note. They are too busy hailing the Obama administration for its multilateral and “consultative” approach to war, supposedly so different from the unilateral and “cowboy” approach of the Bush administration in Iraq. That the result is the same—death and destruction raining down on the population, the trampling of the sovereignty and independence of a former colonial country—means nothing to these apologists for imperialism.

The role of Hifter, aptly described 15 years ago as the leader of a “contra-style group,” demonstrates the real class forces at work in the Libyan tragedy. Whatever genuine popular opposition was expressed in the initial revolt against the corrupt Gaddafi dictatorship, the rebellion has been hijacked by imperialism.

The US and European intervention in Libya is aimed not at bringing “democracy” and “freedom,” but at installing in power stooges of the CIA who will rule just as brutally as Gaddafi, while allowing the imperialist powers to loot the country’s oil resources and use Libya as a base of operations against the popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

Obama Raises American Hypocrisy To A Higher Level

By Paul Craig Roberts

March 29, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- What does the world think? Obama has been using air strikes and drones against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and probably Somalia. In his March 28 speech, Obama justified his air strikes against Libya on the grounds that the embattled ruler, Gadhafi, was using air strikes to put down a rebellion.

Gadhafi has been a black hat for as long as I can remember. If we believe the adage that “where there is smoke there is fire,” Gadhafi is probably not a nice fellow. However, there is no doubt whatsoever that the current US president and the predecessor Bush/Cheney regime have murdered many times more people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia than Gadhafi has murdered in Libya.

Moreover, Gadhafi is putting down a rebellion against state authority as presently constituted, but Obama and Bush/Cheney initiated wars of aggression based entirely on lies and deception.

Yet Gadhafi is being demonized, and Bush/Cheney/Obama are sitting on their high horse draped in cloaks of morality. Obama described himself as saving Libyans from violence while Obama himself murders Afghans, Pakistanis, and whomever else.

Indeed, the Obama regime has been torturing a US soldier, Bradley Manning, for having a moral conscience. America has degenerated to the point where having a moral conscience is evidence of anti-Americanism and “terrorist activity.”

The Bush/Cheney/Obama wars of naked aggression have bankrupted America. Joseph Stiglitz, former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, concluded that the money wasted on the Iraq war could have been used to fix America’s Social Security problem for half a century. Instead, the money was used to boost the obscene profits of the armament industry.
The obscene wars of aggression, the obscene profits of the offshoring corporations, and the obscene bailouts of the rich financial gangsters have left the American public with

annual budget deficits of approximately $1.5 trillion. These deficits are being covered by printing money. Sooner or later, the printing presses will cause the US dollar to collapse and domestic inflation to explode. Social Security benefits will be wiped out by inflation rising more rapidly than the cost-of-living adjustments. If America survives, no one will be left but the mega-rich. Unless there is a violent revolution.

Alternatively, if the Federal Reserve puts the brake on monetary expansion, interest rates will rise, sending the economy into a deeper depression.

Washington, focused on its newest war, is oblivious to America’s peril. As Stiglitz notes, the costs of the Iraq war alone could have kept every foreclosed family in their home, provided health care for every American child, and wiped out the student loans of graduates who cannot find jobs because they have been outsoured to foreigners. However, the great democratic elected government of “the world’s only superpower” prefers to murder Muslims in order to enhance the profits of the military/security complex. More money is spent violating the constitutional rights of American air travelers than is spent in behalf of the needy.

The moral authority of the West is rapidly collapsing. When Russia, Asia, and South America look at Europe, Australia and Canada, they see American puppet states that contribute troops to the aggressive wars of the Empire. The French president, the British prime minister, the “president” of Georgia, and the rest are merely functionaries of the American Empire. The puppet rulers routinely sell out the interests and welfare of their peoples in behalf of American hegemony. And they are well rewarded for their service. One year out of office former British prime minister Tony Blair had a net worth of $30 million.

In his war against Libya, Obama has taken America one step further into Caesarism. Obama did Bush one step better and did not even bother to get congressional authorization for his attack on Libya. Obama claimed that his moral authority trumped the US Constitution. The hypocrisy reeks. How the public stands it, I do not know:

“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and--more profoundly--our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

This from the Great Moral Leader who every day murders civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and now Libya and who turns a blind eye when “the

great democracy in the Middle East,” Israel, murders more Palestinians.
The American president, whose drones and air force slaughter civilians every day of the year went on to say Libya stands alone in presenting the world with “the prospect of violence on a horrific scale.” Obviously, Obama thinks that one million dead Iraqis, four million displaced Iraqis, and an unknown number of murdered Afghans is just a small thing.

The rest of Obama’s speech showed a person more capable of DoubleSpeak and DoubleThink than Big Brother and the denizens of George Orwell’s 1984.

How does a person as totally absurd as Obama expect to be taken seriously?

Obama and Libya

By Butler Shaffer
Lew Rockwell.com

March 24, 2011 "Lew Rockwell' - -Why are thoughtful people so perplexed over Obama’s unilateral decision to go to war against Libya without seeking congressional approval, while opting for UN authorization? Has the possibility not entered anyone’s mind that Obama — put into office by the corporate-establishment — might be in the process of generating a world base for the political structuring of his masters’ interests, as a replacement for the national system of coercive authority?

History demonstrates how the American business system sought a broadened federal power when the economic life of this country evolved from state and regional markets to national ones (see my In Restraint of Trade book). Are we to imagine that, in this age of multi-nationalism, these same interests would not be desirous of empowering an international state to standardize and universally enforce their interests? Does anyone really believe that this move was something that Obama and Michelle dreamed up one night in the Lincoln bedroom?

Does anyone not suspect that the total lack of impeachment talk from members of Congress might be due to ”our representatives” who, like Obama and the RCA Victor dog, are busy listening to their “masters’ voice”?

Libya Rebels: Gaddafi Could be Right About al-Qaeda

Two documents suggest northeast Libya, centre of rebellion, is an al-Qaeda hotspot

By Alexander Cockburn

March 24, 2011 "First Post" -- The war on Libya now being waged by the US, Britain and France must surely rank as one of the stupidest martial enterprises, smaller in scale to be sure, since Napoleon took it into his head to invade Russia in 1812.

Let's start with the fierce hand-to-hand combat between members of the coalition, arguing about the basic aims of the operation. How does "take all necessary measures" square with the ban on any "foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory". Can the coalition kill Gaddafi and recognise a provisional government in Benghazi? Who exactly are the revolutionaries and national liberators in eastern Libya?

In the United States, the offensive was instigated by liberal interventionists: notably three women, starting with Samantha Power, who runs the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights in Barack Obama's National Security Council. She's an Irish American, 41 years old, who made her name back in the Bush years with her book A Problem from Hell, a study of the US foreign-policy response to genocide, and the failure of the Clinton administration to react forcefully to the Rwandan massacres.

She had to resign from her advisory position on the Obama campaign in April of 2008, after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster" in an interview with the Scotsman, but was restored to good grace after Obama's election, and the monster in her sights is now Gaddafi.

America's UN ambassador is Susan Rice, the first African-American woman to be named to that post. She's long been an ardent interventionist. In 1996, as part of the Clinton administration, she supported the multinational force that invaded Zaire from Rwanda in 1996 and overthrew dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, saying privately that, "Anything's better than Mobutu".

But on February 23 she came under fierce attack in the Huffington Post at the hands of Richard Grenell, who'd served on the US delegation to the UN in the Bush years. Grenell dwelt harshly on instances where, in his judgment, Rice and her ultimate boss, Obama, were dropping the ball, and displaying lack of leadership amid the tumults engulfing the Middle East and specifically in failing to support the uprising against Gaddafi.

Both Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton took Grenell's salvo to heart. Prodded by the fiery Power, they abruptly stiffened their postures and Clinton lobbed her furious salvoes at Gaddafi, "the mad dog". For Clinton it was a precise re-run of her efforts to portray Barack Obama as a peace wimp back in 2008, liable to snooze all too peacefully when the red phone rang at 3am.

For his part, Obama wasn't keen on intervention, seeing it as a costly swamp, yet another war and one bitterly opposed by defence secretary Robert Gates and the joint chiefs of staff. But by now the liberal interventions and the neo-cons were in full cry and Obama, perennially fearful of being outflanked, succumbed, hastening to one of the least convincing statements of war aims in the nation's history.

He's already earned a threat of impeachment from leftist congressman Dennis Kucinich for arrogating war-making powers constitutionally reserved for the US Congress, though it has to be said that protest from the left has been pretty feeble. As always, many on the left yearn for an intervention they can finally support and initially many of them have been murmuring ecstatically, "This is the one". Of course the sensible position (mine) simply states that nothing good ever came out of a Western intervention by the major powers, whether humanitarian in proclaimed purpose or not.

So much for the instigators of intervention in the US. In France the intervention author is the intellectual dandy and "new philosopher" Bernard-Henri Levy, familiarly known to his admirers and detractors as BHL. As described by Larry Portis in our CounterPunch newsletter, BHL arrived in Benghazi on March 3. Two days later BHL was interviewed on various television networks. He appeared before the camera in his habitual uniform – immaculate white shirt with upturned collar, black suit coat, and disheveled hair.

His message was urgent but reassuring. "No," he said, "Gaddafi is not capable of launching an offensive against the opposition. He does not have the means to do so. However, he does have planes. This is the real danger."

BHL called for the scrambling of radio communications, the destruction of landing strips in all regions of Libya, and the bombardment of Gaddafi's personal bunker. In brief, this would be a humanitarian intervention, the modalities of which he did not specify.

Next step, as BHL explained: "I called him [Sarkozy] from Benghazi. And when I returned, I went to the Elysee Palace to see him and tell him that the people on the National Transition Council are good guys."

Indeed, on March 6, BHL returned to France and met with Sarkozy. Four days later, on March 10, he saw Sarkozy again, this time with three Libyans whom he had encouraged to visit France, along with Sarkozy's top advisors.

On March 11, Sarkozy declared the Libyan National Transition Council the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people. Back in Benghazi, people screamed in relief and cheered Sarkozy's name. Popularity at last for Sarko, whose approval ratings in France have been hovering around the 20 per cent mark.

So much for the circumstances in which intervention was conceived. It has nothing to do with oil; everything to do with ego and political self-protection. But to whom exactly are the interveners lending succour? There's been great vagueness here, beyond enthusiastic references to the romantic revolutionaries of Benghazi, and much ridicule for Gaddafi's identification of his opponents in eastern

In fact, two documents strongly back Gaddafi on this issue.

The first is a secret cable to the State Department from the US embassy in Tripoli in 2008, part of the WikiLeaks trove, entitled "Extremism in Eastern Libya", which revealed that this area is rife with anti-American, pro-jihad sentiment.

According to the 2008 cable, the most troubling aspect  "... is the pride that many eastern Libyans, particularly those in and around Dernah, appear to take in the role their native sons have played in the insurgency in Iraq … [and the] ability of radical imams to propagate messages urging support for and participation in jihad."

The second document, or rather set of documents, are the so-called Sinjar Records, captured al-Qaeda documents that fell into American hands in 2007. They were duly analysed by the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point. Al-Qaeda is a bureaucratic outfit and the records contain precise details on personnel, including those who came to Iraq to fight American and coalition forces and, when necessary, commit suicide.

The West Point analysts' statistical study of the al-Qaeda personnel records concludes that one country provided "far more" foreign fighters in per capita terms than any other: namely, Libya.


The records show that the "vast majority of Libyan fighters that included their home town in the Sinjar Records resided in the country's northeast". Benghazi provided many volunteers. So did Dernah, a town about 200 kms east of Benghazi, in which an Islamic emirate was declared when the rebellion against Gaddafi started.

New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid even spoke with Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi who promulgated the Islamic emirate. Al-Hasadi "praises Osama bin Laden's 'good points'," Shadid reported, though he prudently denounced the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Other sources have said that this keen admirer of Osama would be most influential in the formation of any provisional government.

The West Point study of the Sinjar Records calculates that of the 440 foreign al-Qaeda recruits whose home towns are known, 21 came from Benghazi, thereby making it the fourth most common home town listed in the records. Fifty-three of the al-Qaeda recruits came from Darnah, the highest total of any of the home towns listed in the records. The second highest number, 51, came from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But Darnah (80,000) has less than two per cent the population of Riyadh. So Darnah contributed "far and away the largest per capita number of fighters".

As former CIA operations officer Brian Fairchild writes, amid "the apparent absence of any plan for post-Gaddafi governance, an ignorance of Libya's tribal nature and our poor record of dealing with tribes, American government documents conclusively establish that the epicentre of the revolt is rife with anti-American and pro-jihad sentiment, and with al-Qaeda's explicit support for the revolt, it is appropriate to ask our policy makers how American military intervention in support of this revolt in any way serves vital US strategic interests".

As I wrote here a few weeks ago, "It sure looks like Osama bin Laden is winning the Great War on Terror". But I did not dream then that he would have a coalition of the US, Great Britain and France bleeding themselves dry to assist him in this enterprise.

‘Barack-A-lujah! I Have Seen The Light!’

By Cindy Sheehan

March 20, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- Thanks to the helpful feedback I have received over these past two, or so, years, I have seen the enormous error of my ways.

I used to be against ALL wars and the use of violence, but (and I must admit a little confusion on this one, at first) now it seems that I am against wars, acts of war, and violence ONLY if a Republican is president. Now I understand with perfect clarity that it was good to protest Bush—and if the US-UN resolution against Libya was done when Bush was president, it would have been wrong—but now it’s “compassionate.” I must admit, I was a little shocked to find out that the US actually commits compassionate acts and, again, silly me—I thought most acts of war and war were for profit. I realize that only a jerk (or racist) would think that now. I have repented.

I cringe with embarrassment when I think of the wasted years imagining that there could be any other way to solve problems without killing more innocent people! It’s okay to bomb Libyans to save Libyans (or Iraqis to save Iraqis; or Afghans to save Afghans; or Yemenis to save Yemenis, etc) because a Democratic president who has been given the cover of the UN Security Council may bomb them. Yep, it’s all starting to make sense. With all the continuing conflicts, imagining a world without war was starting to seem useless—and now I know it was! Phew!

This is another kooky idea I had—that the Security Council of the UN oftentimes, if not always, bowed to the will of the global oligarchy—or should we say, OILigarchy. I chuckle, because apparently that notion was either dead wrong, or was just a fact of life up until January 20, 2009.

Here’s another mistaken notion that I labored under all these years: Torture is inhumane and a war crime. Up until just last week, I thought the US torture camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba should be closed and that military tribunals should not resume—but President Obama signed an executive order to keep Gitmo open and resume military tribunals. Wow, it’s like from almost one day to the next, torture and illegal, indefinite detention became acceptable practices.

Pssst—since I am in confession mode, I want to, with a red face, confess something else. Please, I hope you laugh with me and not at me, but this is so hard to admit. I thought I learned that US citizens were to be arrested only with reasonable cause, given their due process, and THEN punished if found guilty. I must admit I still thought that was wrong earlier today, but when I was (not so) gently and repeatedly reminded that we have a change agent as president, the scales fell from my eyes and now I get it! If Barack Obama (D) thinks that a US citizen needs to be executed without a trial or even a handshake, then by golly that person must need to be killed. Barack Obama (D) is a Constitutional scholar after all and I am sure his interpretation of the Bill of Rights is the correct one. Who am I to argue? What a relief—thinking is so unnecessary and hard!

Now the skeptical, old and ignorant Cindy Sheehan would have thought that the US was only concerned with the regime in Libya “killing its own citizens” because Libya has large crude oil reserves, but that was before I reflected on the fact that Barack Obama (D) has told us that offshore drilling and nuclear power is safe! Like my new hero, Barack Obama (D) keeps saying, we do need to “reduce” US dependence on “foreign oil,” but not before we kill as many people as we must to get all of that oil. The old me also would have thought that we needed to entirely eliminate our dependence on petroleum and petroleum products all together, but if Barack Obama (D) says it’s safe, that’s good enough for me!

I just hope the people of Libya realize that it’s way more of an honor to be killed by a US bomb then by a Libyan bomb and what an honor it is that the US is paying attention to their internal strife, because we don’t always do that—we like to pick and choose—and Libya, it’s probably just a coincidence that we choose YOU because you have oil. My country would never do anything wrong when a Democrat is president and I will forget history, too, because I don’t need it anymore.

I also must admit that I used to spend a lot of time worrying about Pfc Bradley Manning being incarcerated and tortured at Quantico for allegedly dumping info about US policy to Wikileaks. Now, I believe that if he did that to my wonderful president, he must deserve the treatment he is getting. Manning, that traitor, is lucky President Obama (D) hasn’t just decided to drop a Hellfire missile on him from one of those righteous drones he loves to use!

Additionally, if Obama (D) says that Manning’s treatment is “appropriate,” I believe him now. Worrying about Bradley was keeping me up at night and now I wish I had the money back that I incorrectly donated to his legal defense fund so I can send it to the Committee to Re-Elect the President.
The old axiom is true! Confession is good for the soul!

I hope with this confession and subsequent penance (10 Our Fathers, 20 Hail Mary’s and a pledge to vote Democrat for the rest of my life) that I am accepted back into the fold of the Democratic Party. I will also voluntarily swear to uphold healthcare for profit and to love Wall Street, the war machine, and the bankers with all my heart while detesting working people and those people who want to “kill Americans” for absolutely no reason.

In Obama I trust. What a relief! Having a conscience is very isolating.
Let’s Party with a capital D because if I can CHANGE, then there is HOPE for everyone and anyone else who are still lost wandering nearly alone in that wilderness of integrity.

Come home!

War is Peace!

Freedom is Slavery!

Ignorance is Strength.

2 + 2 = 5

MIlitary Action in Libya Already Exceeds UNSC Resolution 1973: Control of Oil is Actual "End"

Libya’s Slippery Slope: We're going down it fast

by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
March 21, 2011

Barely 24 hours after the first Allied air strikes, President Obama’s high-flying Libyan adventure is losing altitude. The smoke hadn’t cleared from the first air strikes when the head of the Arab League complained that “what happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives. What we want is civilians’ protection, not shelling more civilians.” Russia and China, who abstained at the Security Council, are already getting restless.
There’s trouble on the horizon.

Initially skeptical of intervention in Libya’s civil war, the President reportedly bowed to pressure from a triumvirate of women in his administration: Hillary Clinton, National Security Council director of “multilateral affairs” Samantha Power, and UN ambassador Susan Rice. Yet the President imposed some conditions, according to the New York Times:

“The president had a caveat, though. The American involvement in military action in Libya should be limited — no ground troops — and finite. ‘Days, not weeks,’ a senior White House official recalled him saying.”


Years, not weeks, is more like it – that’s how fast we’re sliding down the slippery slope into a full-bore campaign of “regime change” in Libya. And that will be just fine with the three Vengeful Valkyries of the US State Department.

Power is a former journalist who says she was “obsessed” with Bosnia during the run-up to the Balkan war, and whose “human rights” agenda is a perfect reflection of the liberal “humanitarian” interventionist mindset. She was briefly famous when, during the Democratic presidential primary, she decried Hillary Clinton as a “monster.” Well, it looks like she’s more than made her peace with the monster – and, indeed, become a bit of a monster herself, – as the two team up to push us into yet another Middle Eastern war.

Married to Cass “Let’s Infiltrate the Internet” Sunstein, a White House adviser, Power is indeed obsessed with dispensing “social justice” worldwide as an instrument of US foreign policy. If she had her way – and she may yet – US troops would be in Darfur, Rwanda, and any number of Third World hellholes, nation-building, handing out goodies, and getting shot at by the grateful populace.

Susan Rice, former Undersecretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton administration, is yet another “humanitarian” in search of “genocides” to avenge. Like Power, she believes we ought to have intervened in Rwanda, and is part of a hard-liner clique, including her mentor Madeleine Albright and the late Richard Holbrooke, that holds the view the US must take a more interventionist stance in Africa, which, Rice avers, is undergoing its “first world war.” And she means for us to take sides in that war. When Ethiopia invaded Somalia, in 2007, Ms. Rice cheered the advance of the Ethiopian dictator Mele Zenawi’s armies as they rampaged through the country. Zenawi’s regime is now targeting neighboring Eritrea. Will the White House, under Rice’s tutelage, support that, too?

The leading member of this Amazonian triumvirate is, of course, our Secretary of State, whose support for US intervention in Libya was signaled early on when Bill Clinton said we ought to go in. Hillary’s key role in dragging us into Libya’s civil war hardly comes as a shock. During the presidential primary, she distinguished herself from Obama by assuming a “tough” foreign policy stance, famously running an attack ad that conjured a hapless President Obama getting a call on the red phone at three in the morning. Rather than rethink her position on Iraq, even after the disastrous consequences of the invasion began to roll in, she held her ground and refused to back off her support for the war. As I said at the time of her appointment:

“Remember the Clinton ad about the phone call at three in the morning? Well, now it looks like it’ll be Hillary making that call, if and when it has to be made – a clever bit of political jiu-jitsu on Obama’s part that has generally gone unremarked amid the praise for the alleged smartness of the Clinton appointment. What’s not so smart, however, is that he’s essentially conceding the realm of foreign affairs to the Clintons.

What we’ll have, in effect, is a co-presidency, with Obama taking the lead on domestic matters … The Clintons, on the other hand, will be put in charge of shoring up the Empire and reassuring our allies that the only ‘change’ will be a regression: don’t worry, we’re just going back to the 1990s.”

Which is where we are today. President Clinton set a new record as far as the sheer number of times he intervened abroad: Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq, and Kosovo – this last, you’ll recall, at Hillary’s persistent urging. The “humanitarian” wing of the War Party is in the saddle, and they are just as ideological, just as bellicose, and just as self-deluded as their neoconservative counterparts on the right.

Gadhafi has promised “a long war.” Is the US prepared for that? For – make no mistake – it is the Americans who will be asked to take up the main burden of what is bound to degenerate into an extended “peacekeeping” operation. Our European allies just don’t have the military capacity, and none of the Arab countries, for all their bluster, are up to the job, either.

Gadhafi may come on as a madman, and may indeed actually be a madman, but there is a definite method to his madness, and it has served him well so far. For over 40 years, he’s managed to stay in power in a very rough neighborhood, surviving the bombing of his palace by Ronald Reagan and crushing every sign of internal rebellion up until now. He also has a significant base of support in the western provinces, and from some tribal leaders in the south.

I see that the US and its allies are now backing off the “regime change” rhetoric, but that won’t be so easy. Having taken that first step into the Libyan quagmire, we’re fated to slide down the increasingly slippery slope of Libya’s complicated internal politics, until we land smack dab in the middle of a godawful mess.

Our too-smart-for-their-own-good policy wonks in the State Department are convinced they’re getting ahead of the Arab Awakening and that the US will be greeted as a liberator by pro-democracy forces everywhere. Except, of course, in Yemen, where we’re backing another President-for-life who just murdered peaceful protesters: oh yes, and also except for Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, where peaceful protesters are being killed and jailed by pro-US monarchs. But that is really the least of our worries: after all, a global hegemon doesn’t have to answer to anybody, and so calling out our inconsistencies has little impact in Washington.

No, our real problem is going to be the Libyan opposition. Having adopted them, we are stuck with them – and subject to their further demands. And first and foremost among those demands is going to be regime change. Rather than stay in Cyrenaica, the eastern part of the country which has its own historical identity and separatist aspirations, the rebels are determined to march on Tripoli – and they will be wanting (nay, demanding) air cover, arms, “advisers,” and other forms of aid, which they are sure to get.

There are no half measures in war. Sooner rather than later, the President is going to have to decide if the US wants to commit US forces to Libya in a big way. “Days, not weeks,” is a fantasy. The Libyan rebels have now been placed under our protection: we are the champions of their cause. From protecting Benghazi, we are already well on our way to establishing yet another American protectorate in the Middle East. The empire expands, even as the economy shrinks, and one has to wonder: how long can this go on?

Americans, in voting for Barack Obama, voted for less intervention, fewer wars, and the prospect of real change in our foreign policy of global intervention. They didn’t sign on to a “team of equals,” and nobody asked them if they wanted American foreign policy turned over to the Clintons.

The President will live to regret the day he allowed himself to be nagged into ordering US military intervention in the Libyan civil war. Gadhafi is not just a clown, he’s a dangerous and sinister clown: to get in the ring with this madman is a mistake. Gadhafi will goad and lure him and his Amazons ever deeper into the Libyan quicksand, until there is no hope of early extrication. Now that the US and its allies are involved, the Libyan despot can play the anti-Western, anti-imperialist card with some credibility: this will shore up his previously waning support in the west and the south.

It is indeed going to be a long war, one that will cost us much more than we can ever hope to gain.

_______________________________________________


Interventionists Struggle to Reconcile Libyan Action with Repression Across Arab World

By: David Dayen
Firedoglake.com
Sunday March 20, 2011 9:25 am

So I picked the wrong day to be stuck without Internet access, I guess. It was March 19, eight years to the day after the invasion of Iraq, the US lobbed Tomahawk missiles into Libya, attempting to take out air defenses in preparation for enforcing a no-fly zone.

We’re on day two of this, still operating without Congressional approval – much to the indifference of the Congress, if the Senators on the Sunday shows are to be believed – and I don’t have the first clue what the ultimate objective is. Some officials in France and Britain and the US say the goal is to rid Libya of Gadhafi. Others stress that the military objective is limited to protecting civilians in Benghazi and other Libyan cities. But the endgame, under that military mandate, is destined for an uncertain limbo:

“There was this premature triumphalism about the passage of the UN resolution but what is the plan for dealing with this entity called Libya?” says Brian Katulis at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think-tank.

There is a very awkward phase emerging where Gaddafi is entrenched while there’s a rump state in eastern Libya and some but not all states in the Arab world work to isolate the regime.”

Conversely, what if the injection of western airpower is massively successful and Gaddafi’s regime collapses. That doesn’t mean an automatic transition to a new stable state. Does the “Pottery Barn Rule” apply if a chaotic scenario develops?

The fact that you can watch US officials on television saying that they have to “learn more” about the Libyan opposition while military aircraft are in the air facilitating their entry into power should be pretty distressing. And the answer here is pretty clear: the people who argued for attacks on Libya aren’t going to be satisfied with a detente, with Gadhafi in Tripoli and a Free Benghazi. This cannot help but escalate. And America tends to have their feet trapped in molasses when they set foot in a foreign land.

And then there’s the massive hypocrisy of selective interventionism here. Yemen fired live ammo on its own citizens and killed at least 45 just a day before this bombing of Libya. Bahrain tore down the Pearl Monument and rounded up opposition Shiites on the same day. And you can name dozens of other countries where intervention under the standard used in Libya would be at least as warranted. It’s not a reason to deny aid to the Libyan opposition, but it’s a reason to seriously doubt the so-called “freedom agenda” of the interventionists.

But all this context is relevant as an indictment of the elite leadership class of the United States of America. If everyone cares as much about the political rights of Arabs as Libya interventionists say, then what on earth are they doing in Bahrain and Yemen and Palestine? If everyone cares as much about the loss of innocent African life as Libya interventionists say, then what on earth are they doing ponying up so little in foreign aid and doing so little to dismantle ruinous cotton subsidies? These aren’t really points about Libya. And why should they be? What do I know about Libya? What does Chait know about Libya? These are points about the United States of America and the various elites who run the country and shape the discourse. Exactly the kinds of subjects that frequent participants in American political debates know and care about. I see no particular reason to think that Libya will have any impact on malaria funding, but I do think the level of malaria funding is impacted over the long term by the existence of a substantial number of people (of which Chait is one) who seem to advocate for humanitarian goals in Africa if and only if those goals can be advanced through the use of military force to kill other Africans.

So I hope this Libya policy works out. I have my doubts, but who knows. The world is full of surprises. I do know, however, that providing more bed nets to prevent malaria would be cheap and logistically simple compared to deposing Gaddafi and that the easiest step America could take to deal a blow to Arab autocracy would be to stop selling weapons to Arab autocrats that they turn around and fire on their people.

But you don’t understand the genius of this Matt, when we have to destroy the weapons systems that we sell to Arab autocrats, we know precisely how to disable them! It’s very efficient.

A sampling of the Sunday shows this morning shows a real bankruptcy of arguments to explain this. Admiral Mike Mullen wisely didn’t bother to justify it, limiting his comments to the circumstances in Libya. Lindsey Graham tried this weird bank shot where he claimed that rulers in Yemen and Bahrain were only emboldened to strike at their civilians because of Obama’s indecisiveness on striking Libya. So then now that resolve has been shown the repression will stop, right? Wrong. Jack Reed said we have a dialogue with Bahrain and Yemen, unlike in Libya, and so we can talk to those leaders. A lot of good that’s done.

But John Kerry, who has shown himself as basically the spokesman for this kind of humanitarian intervention, gave away the game here. He first intimated that the Bahraini opposition had the aid of Iran and Hezbollah, mirroring Secretary of State Clinton on this point. But he then said this on Meet the Press: the difference between Libya and the other countries was that the Arab League sanctioned this conduct and asked for help from the international community to install a no-fly zone.

The international community has spoken with one voice about Ivory Coast and Congo as well, so this still doesn’t get Kerry out of the woods. But my main point is this: how does that standard not indemnify every member state in the Arab League, allowing them to repress their citizens as long as they withhold support for an international response? Here are the member states of the Arab League. Do you recognize some of the names? Algeria. Bahrain. Iraq. Oman. Saudi Arabia. Sudan. Syria. Yemen. All countries which have repressed and killed their own citizens in response to protests. As I read it, all of the Arab League member states can merely block resolutions for international help for protesters in those areas, and save themselves from any action. Sure, they could suspend a member state, like they did with Libya in February, but basically, the international community then is at the whim of internal Arab League politics to muster a response to slaughter. What kind of standard is that?

The point is that there is no standard. It’s just a hypocritical, self-justifying way to use military force on a selective basis when hydrocarbon sources are threatened to be withheld.  (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)

Arab League Splits From West Over Libya Bombing

Editor's NOTE:

Not even 24 hours after the UN sanctioned Strikes began on Libya, the Arab League has objected to what only one week ago it voted for unanymously.

Surely they were aware that it would be necessary to attack Libyan Air Defense batteries prior to erecting a no-fly zone and that this would involve the unwanted but unavoidable killing of civilians.

Such is the way of war in the 21st century and more the reason why the current attacks on Libya in the name of protecting rebel fighers is unwise and immoral whether the United Nations Security Council through SC resolution 1973 ordered it or not.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert


Arab League Splits From West Over Libya Bombing

Niall Paterson, defence correspondent, and Pete Norman
 Skynews
2:40pm UK, Sunday March 20, 2011

The Arab League has criticised the military strikes on Libya, a week after urging the United Nations to slap a no-fly zone on the oil-rich North African state.

The Arab League chief said that Arabs did not want military strikes by Western powers that hit civilians when the League called for a no-fly zone over Libya.

Secretary-General Amr Moussa said he was calling for an emergency Arab League meeting to discuss the situation in the Arab world and particularly Libya.

"What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians," Mr Moussa told Egypt's official state news agency.

The volte-face by the influential regional body raises uncertainty about the unity of Western and Muslim leaders to the UN-backed military campaign. MORE...

Hypocrisy: Washington and the Civilians of Libya

By Professor Lawrence Davidson

March 19, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- Whether you believe that the United Nations resolution authorizing extensive intervention in the Libyan civil war is justified or not, and whether you believe that the admittedly eccentric forty two year rule of Muammar Gadhafi over a complex and fractious tribal society has been cruel or not, there is one thing that all objective observers should be able to agree on. All should agree that the rationale put forth by the United States government for supporting the impending NATO intervention, that this action is to be taken to bring about an immediate end to attacks on civilians, is one of the biggest acts of hypocrisy in a modern era ridden with hypocrisy.

There is, of course, no arguing with the principle put forth. The protection of civilians in times of warfare, a moral good in itself, is a requirement of international law. Yet it is a requirement that is almost always ignored. And no great power has ignored it more than the United States. In Iraq the civilian death count due to the American invasion may well have approached one million. In Afghanistan, again directly due to the war initiated by U.S. intervention, civilian deaths between 2007 and 2010 are estimated at about 10,000. In Vietnam, United States military intervention managed to reduce the civilian population by about two million.

And then there is United States protection of the Israeli process of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. America’s hypocrisy as Washington consistently does nothting about the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the slow reduction of a million and half Gazans to poverty and malnutrition. And, finally, the unforgettable hypocrisy inherent in U.S. support for the 2009 Israeli invasion of that tiny and crowded enclave. The 2009 invasion was the most striking example of an outright attack on civilians and civilian infrastructure since the World War II. And the American government supported every single moment of it.

Thus, when President Obama gets up before the TV cameras and tells us that Libyan civilians have to be protected, when UN ambassador Susan Rice tells us that the aim of the UN resolution is to safeguard Libya’s civilian population and bring those who attack civilians, including Gadhafi, before the International Criminal Court, a certain sense of nausea starts to gather in the pit of one’s stomach. If Washington wants regime change in Libya, which is almost certainly the case, government spokespersons ought to just say it and spare us all a feeling of spiritual despair worthy of Soren Kieregaard!

It was Oscar Wilde who once said that "the true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity." I think that politicians learn, some easier than others, to live their lives like this. And, as I have said before, the only way they can be successful in sharing their delusions with the rest of us is that the majority do not have the contextual knowledge to analyze and make accurate judgments on their utterances. The successful hypocrite and his or her ignorant audience go hand in hand.

In Search of Monsters

By MAUREEN DOWD

March 16, 2011 "NYT" -March 12, 2011 - - The Iraq war hawks urging intervention in Libya are confident that there’s no way Libya could ever be another Iraq. Of course, they never thought Iraq would be Iraq, either.

All President Obama needs to do, Paul Wolfowitz asserts, is man up, arm the Libyan rebels, support setting up a no-fly zone and wait for instant democracy.

It’s a cakewalk.

Didn’t we arm the rebels in Afghanistan in the ’80s? And didn’t many become Taliban and end up turning our own weapons on us? And didn’t one mujahadeen from Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden, go on to lead Al Qaeda?

So that worked out well.

Even now, with our deficit and military groaning from two wars in Muslim countries, interventionists on the left and the right insist it’s our duty to join the battle in a third Muslim country.

“It is both morally right and in America’s strategic interest to enable the Libyans to fight for themselves,” Wolfowitz wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece.

You would think that a major architect of the disastrous wars and interminable occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq would have the good manners to shut up and take up horticulture. But the neo-con naif has no shame.

After all, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates told West Point cadets last month, “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

Gates boldly batted back the Cakewalk Brigade — which includes John McCain, Joe Lieberman and John Kerry — bluntly telling Congress last week: “Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone. And then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down. But that’s the way it starts.”

Wolfowitz, Rummy’s No. 2 in W.’s War Department, pushed to divert attention from Afghanistan and move on to Iraq; he pressed the canards that Saddam and Osama were linked and that we were in danger from Saddam’s phantom W.M.D.'s; he promised that the Iraq invasion would end quickly and gleefully; he slapped back Gen. Eric Shinseki when he said securing Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops; and he claimed that rebuilding Iraq would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues.

How wrong, deceptive and deadly can you be and still get to lecture President Obama on his moral obligations?

Wolfowitz was driven to invade Iraq and proselytize for the Libyan rebels partly because of his guilt over how the Bush I administration coldly deserted the Shiites and Kurds who were urged to rise up against Saddam at the end of the 1991 gulf war. Saddam sent out helicopters to slaughter thousands. (A NATO no-fly zone did not stop that.)

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is also monstrous, slaughtering civilians and hiring mercenaries to kill rebels.

It’s hard to know how to proceed, but in his rush, Wolfowitz never even seems to have a good understanding of the tribal thickets he wants America to wade into. In Foreign Affairs, Frederic Wehrey notes that “for four decades Libya has been largely terra incognita ... ‘like throwing darts at balloons in a dark room,’ as one senior Western diplomat put it to me.”

Leslie Gelb warns in The Daily Beast that no doubt some rebels are noble fighters, but some “could turn out to be thugs, thieves, and would-be new dictators. Surely, some will be Islamic extremists. One or more might turn into another Col. Qaddafi after gaining power. Indeed, when the good colonel led the Libyan coup in 1969, many right-thinking Westerners thought him to be a modernizing democrat.”

Reformed interventionist David Rieff, who wrote the book “At the Point of a Gun,” which criticizes “the messianic dream of remaking the world in either the image of American democracy or of the legal utopias of international human rights law,” told me that after Iraq: “America doesn’t have the credibility to make war in the Arab world. Our touch in this is actually counterproductive.”

He continued: “Qaddafi is a terrible man, but I don’t think it’s the business of the United States to overthrow him. Those who want America to support democratic movements and insurrections by force if necessary wherever there’s a chance of them succeeding are committing the United States to endless wars of altruism. And that’s folly.”

He quotes John Quincy Adams about America: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy ... she is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

As for Wolfowitz, Rieff notes drily, “He should have stayed a mathematician.”