America's Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya

America's Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya

Creative Destruction, Libya in Washington's Greater Middle East Project

For those who do not believe in coincidence, it's notable that on March 19, 2011 the Obama Administration ordered the military bombing attack on Libya, ostensibly to create a 'no fly zone' to protect innocent civilians and on March 19, 2003, the Bush administration ordered the bombing of Iraq.

The No Fly strikes were begun under US command with suspicious haste following the UN Resolution. To date the attacks have been led by US, British and French air forces and warships. A storm of Tomahawk cruise missiles and GPS-guided bombs has rained down on undisclosed Libyan targets with reports of many civilian deaths. No end is in sight at present.

Eight years earlier to the day, the Bush Administration began its Operation Shock and Awe, the military destruction and occupation of Iraq, allegedly to prevent a threat of weapons of mass destruction which never existed as was later confirmed. The Iraqi invasion followed more than a decade of illegal No Fly Zone operations over Iraqi airspace by the same trio—USA, Britain and France.

Far more important than any possible numerology games a superstitious Pentagon might or might not be playing is the ultimate agenda behind the domino series of regime destabilizations that Washington has ignited under the banner of democracy and human rights across the Islamic world since December 2010.

With Washington's exerting of enormous pressure on other NATO member states to take formal command of the US-led bombing of Libya, no matter under what name, in order to give Washington a fig leaf that would shift attention away from the Pentagon's central role via AFRICOM in coordinating the military operation, the entire upheaval sweeping across North African and Middle East Islamic countries is looking at this writing more like the early onset of a World War III, one that some NATO members hint is expected to last decades.

As with World War II and World War I, this one as well would be launched to expand what David Rockefeller and George H.W. Bush in the past have called a "new world order."

Gaddafi's real 'crime'

Unlike Tunisia or Egypt where a halfway credible argument could be made that the population was suffering from exploding food prices and a vast wealth gap, Gaddafi's Libya, officially called Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, is very different.

There, according to Africans I have spoken to with direct knowledge, Libyans enjoyed the highest living standard on the Continent. Gaddafi did not stay on top for 42 years without ensuring that his population had little room to complain. Most health services, education and fuel was state-subsidized. Gaddafi's Libya had the lowest infant mortality rate and highest life expectancy of all Africa. When he siezed power from ailing King Idris four decades ago literacy was below 10% of the population. Today it is above 90%, hardly the footprint of your typical tyrant. Less than 5% of the population is undernourished, a figure lower than in the United States. In response to the rising food prices of recent months, Gaddafi took care to abolish all taxes on food. And a lower percentage of people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands. Gaddafi calls his model a form of Islamic socialism. It is secular and not theocratic, despite its overwhelmingly Sunni base in the population. 1

Why is the United States so opposed to Gadaffi? Clearly because he is simply "not with the program." Gaddafi has shown repeatedly and not without grounds that he deeply distrusts Washington. He has constantly tried to forge an independent voice for an Africa that is increasingly being usurped by the Pentagon's AFRICOM. In 1999 he initiated creation of the African Union, based in Addis Abbaba, to strengthen the international voice of Africa's former colonial states. At a pan-African summit in 2009 he appealed for creation of a United States of Africa to combine the economic strengths of what is perhaps the world's richest continent in terms of unexploited mineral and agricultural potentials.

Granted Gaddafi doesn't have the best Western PR agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi of Hill & Knowlton to give his message the pretty touches that politicians like Barack Obama or David Cameron or Nikolas Sarkozy have. Nor is he photogenic like his Washington counterpart, making his grisly face easy to demonize in the media as a kind of new Hitler.

Gaddafi is a thorn in Washington's side for other reasons though. He says that the 9/11 hijackers were trained in the US, yet he also urged Libyans to donate blood to Americans after 9/11. Gaddafi has been working for decades to build an independent voice for African states not controlled by either the US or former European colonial powers, his United States of Africa.

When all the Western media demonizing is stripped away, Gaddafi is the last of a generation of moderate socialist pan-Arabists still in power, after Egypt's Nasser and Iraq's Saddam Hussein have been eliminated, and Syria has aligned with Iran.2

So long as he remains, Libya poses an embarrassing economic alternative to Washington's 'free market' globalization template which it is now desperate to impose on the one billion peoples of the Islamic world from Morocco across Africa and the Middle East to Afghanistan. For the powers driving this spreading war, it is a question of survival of the American Century, or what the quaint neo-conservatives called the New American Century, of the future survival of a sole American Superpower through spreading war and chaos as its own economy disintegrates more by the day.

Amr Mousa and dubious political games

The launch of Operation Odyssey Dawn, the coordinated US-British-French military attack on Libya following the UN Security Council resolution, was begun with shocking speed once Egyptian diplomat Amr Mousa, spokesman for the Arab League, conveniently arm-twisted his nervous brothers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states, clearly convincing them that by voting for the no-fly they might remain in the good graces of Washington and thereby avoid the fate of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak or Tunisia's Ben Ali. Washington had clearly planned its military actions long before March 19.

Following weeks of diplomatic deception and what were clearly deliberately misleading signals from US Defense Secretary Robert Gates claiming to oppose a no-fly zone for Libya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claiming to support one, and a US President appearing to be weak and vacillating, the Nobel Peace President Obama, the President who ordered escalation of the war in Afghanistan and defended the CIA torture prison at Guantanamo, ordered a de facto declaration of war against a sovereign nation, Libya, despite the fact that no US lives were endangered nor US territory threatened by what was essentially an internal Libyan armed tribal uprising against an established head of state and government. Moreover, Gaddafi's Libya has never threatened an invasion of a neighboring state, an essential if forgotten precondition for any UN intervention.

As experience in Bosnia and in Iraq in the 1990s clearly showed, a No Fly Zone is not a neutral minor event but a full scale act of war, a violent taking control of the airspace of a sovereign territory, including destroying the anti-aircraft and air strike capacity of the target country.

Richard Falk, a distinguished professor of international law and UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights, noted the utter lack of any basic criteria for a UN intervention in Libya:

What is immediately striking about the bipartisan call in Washington for a no-fly zone and air strikes designed to help rebel forces in Libya is the absence of any concern with the relevance of international law or the authority of the United Nations. None in authority take the trouble to construct some kind of legal rationalisation. The 'realists' in command, and echoed by the mainstream media, do not feel any need to provide even a legal fig leaf before embarking on aggressive warfare.

It should be obvious that a no-fly zone in Libyan airspace is an act of war, as would be, of course, contemplated air strikes on fortifications of the Gaddafi forces. The core legal obligation of the UN Charter requires member states to refrain from any use of force unless it can be justified as self-defence after a cross-border armed attack or mandated by a decision of the UN Security Council.

Neither of these conditions authorising a legal use of force is remotely present, and yet the discussion proceeds in the media and Washington circles as if the only questions worth discussing pertain to feasibility, costs, risks, and a possible backlash in the Arab world.3

Falk, who has spent most of the past five decades defending the now-forgotten notion that a rule of law is preferable to a rule of barbarian 'might makes right,' adds, "Cannot it not be argued that in situations of humanitarian emergency 'a state of exception' exists allowing an intervention to be carried out by a coalition of the willing provided it doesn't make the situation worse?" He answers his rhetorical question:

With respect to Libya, we need to take account of the fact that the Gaddafi government, however distasteful on humanitarian grounds, remains the lawful diplomatic representative of a sovereign state, and any international use of force even by the UN, much less a state or group of states, would constitute an unlawful intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, prohibited by Article 2(7) of the UN Charter unless expressly authorised by the Security Council as essential for the sake of international peace and security.

Beyond this, there is no assurance that an intervention, if undertaken, would lessen the suffering of the Libyan people or bring to power a regime more respectful of human rights and dedicated to democratic participation.

What I am mainly decrying here in the Libyan debate are three kinds of policy failure: The exclusion of international law and the United Nations from relevance to national debates about international uses of force; The absence of respect for the dynamics of self-determination in societies of the South; The refusal to heed the ethics and politics appropriate for a post-colonial world order that is being de-Westernised and is becoming increasingly multi-polar. 4

Notable in the latest Washington rush to war was the lack of any independent verification of what had become the universal image of a Gaddafi ordering his air force to shoot on what western media claimed were innocent unarmed civilians. CNN staged camera shots don't qualify as neutral in this instance, nor BBC. Ibrahim Sahad, Libyan opposition figure and National Front for the Salvation of Libya spokesman, made the charge against Gaddafi literally while standing in front of the US White House. No one bothered to independently confirm if it was accurate.

More notable, once the Arab League agreed to back a Libyan No Fly option, opposition within the UN Security Council collapsed, giving Washington its desired cover of plausible international support for its desired military action.

The Security Council vote was 10-0 with five major countries abstaining including Russia and China, which have veto power, along with India, Germany and Brazil. The United States, France and Britain pushed for speedy approval. Conveniently ignored in the ever so select mainstream western media was the relevant fact that the direct neighbors of Libya, Algeria and Tunisia and the entire African Union voted against the No Fly Zone: "If you ain't singing from our sheet of music, you don't exist, Bubba..."

Nominally, the resolution for a no-fly zone was requested by the Libyan rebels' Transitional National Council and the Arab League. In reality, as former Indian diplomat M. K. Bhadrakumar noted, "The plain truth is that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union commanded Arab League to speak since they need a fig leaf to approach the United Nations Security Council. . .The Western powers had earlier mentioned the Arab League and African Union in the same breath as representing 'regional opinion.' Now it seems the African Union isn't so important—it has become an embarrassment. African leaders are proving to be tough nuts to crack compared to Arab playboy-rulers." 5

Bhadrakumar, a former ambassador to Kuwait and Turkey, added, "The Arab League resolution was rammed through by Amr Mousa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, who hopes to succeed Hosni Mubarak as Egypt's next president. Arab leaders, who depend upon the US for their continued existence, were not hard to persuade." 6 Mousa, a savvy survivor, knows he stands no chance to be President if he doesn't have Washington's backing, covert or overt.

'Coalition of the unwilling'

The entire Washington manipulation left its backers, a de facto 'coalition of the unwilling,' realizing they had been double-crossed by Washington. As soon as the relentless bombing of civilian as well as military targets in Tripoli and across Libya became clear, Amr Mousa conveniently claimed that killing civilians had not been part of the UN deal, as if he hadn't thought of that possibility before.

Russia's Putin called the US action a new "crusade" against Libya and the Islamic world, not without reason. China denounced the US intervention. Unfortunately, both countries had been silent when it could have counted during the UN Security Council voting when they abstained, perhaps out of fear of alienating the powerful oil producer countries of the Arab League.

Realizing that they had been tricked big-time by Washington, London and Paris, all of whom had apparently planned the military action against Libya long-before any UN or Arab League vote, European NATO members and others including NATO-member Turkey immediately began vehement protest.

Germany withdrew its military support equipment from the region over disagreement over the campaign's lack of goals or direction as unity within NATO crumbled. Italy accused France of backing the No Fly in order to grab Libya's oil riches out from under Italy's state-controlled ENI/AGIP. Italy also threatened to revoke US, UK, and French rights to use its bases unless NATO were formally put in charge. As of this writing Washington had even less true international backing for its military adventure than even in the 2003 Iraq invasion.

For its part British government ministers were calling for assassination of Gaddafi, stating that the Middle East and North African war could go on some "30 years." 7

Others made the comparison to the Twentieth Century upheavals and dismantling of European empires that made way ultimately for an American Century. Those upheavals, which lasted from 1914 through 1945 were remembered in history books as World War I and World War III—in reality one long thirty years' war for global hegemony.

As the eventual "winner" of that mammoth contest, United States elites grouped then around the immensely powerful Rockefeller family and proclaimed what Time-Life publisher Henry Luce in a 1941 editorial named an "American Century." That American Century is now in dangerous decline, a protracted death agony of decay and self-destruction that began manifestly in 1971, symbolized by President Richard Nixon's unilateral decision to tear up the Bretton Woods monetary treaty and break the tie between the US dollar and gold, a fateful turn.

Another war for oil?

Yes, Libya's oil is indeed a factor behind the British, French and US war fervor. According to what one highly-informed Middle East oil services expert familiar with the oil resources of the entire region told me privately in a recent discussion, Libya has vast untapped oil wealth, by far Africa's largest, and "it is almost sulfur-free, the highest quality crude you find anywhere." Until now, despite repeated CIA coup and assassination attempts to topple Gaddafi in the past, the Libyan leader was careful to not surrender total control over his oil resources to the Anglo-American oil cartel interests but to retain control to build the country, something definitely not to Washington's liking.

Notably, the center of Libyan oil infrastructure is in the Benghazi region in the east where the Western-backed rebellion started. Benghazi is north of Libya’s richest oil fields, close to most of its oil and gas pipelines, refineries and Libya's LNG port. The National Transitional Council of the Libyan Republic led by Mustafa Abdul Jalil is based there.

But it would be a mistake to reduce what is in fact Washington's Greater Middle East Project, as George W. Bush called it at the time of the 2003 Iraq invasion, to merely a grab for the oil.

Rather, regime change from Gaddafi to a US-dependent puppet regime amounts to a critical piece in a well-planned long-term US strategy to dismantle national institutions and a culture going back well over one thousand years, in an attempt to force the entire Islamic world into what George H.W. Bush in 1991 and David Rockefeller in his autobiography more recently triumphantly called a "New World Order." 8 Others call it an American-centered global imperium: "Big Mac's, KFC chicken wings and Coke Zero for everyone! Poverty, chaos, killings and Orwelian uniformity—Welcome to our new world where We give the orders and you snap your heels..."

'Responsibility to protect...'

As in the cases of the US-instigated "spontaneous" and "democratic" revolts in Egypt and in Tunisia earlier,9 Washington is carefully orchestrating the Gaddafi succession from behind the scenes. As numerous critics of the Washington policy pointed out, the US intervention in Libya is not a neutral act to protect innocent civilians but rather a calculated attempt to force regime change by militarily shifting the balance to the well-armed opposition forces in Benghazi in the east of Libya.

By stopping Gaddafi government forces from restoring control over their territory from an armed uprising that has fostered a civil war, principles of international sovereignty have gingerly been thrown out the window and replaced by a vague and unsubstantiated notion of "responsibility to protect," a precedent for use of force that many governments from Berlin to Rome to Beijing and Moscow now realize could have horrendous future consequences for them as well.

Once world opinion accepts the fuzzy notion that something being called "responsibility to protect," however vaguely defined, trumps national sovereignty, what is to stop Washington from imposing a No Fly zone over China or Russia or anywhere for that matter, to prevent "human rights abuses"?

Who defines that nebulous "responsibility to protect"? Washington, of course. Were there truth in labelling in international politics today, it would be named "responsibility to protect Washington's self-defined interests."

Barack Obama openly declared Washington backing for the Libyan opposition within hours of the UN Resolution, leaving no doubt that the US role was never intended to be one of a neutral peace mediator. In a CNN Spanish language interview in San Salvador on March 23, Obama declared his "hope" that Libya's opposition movement, given new protection by the US-led military assaults, can organize itself to oust Gaddafi from power. 10 Regime change is the name of Washinton's game.

Not surprisingly, it's also the name of France's game. On March 25 French President Sarkozy urged Qaddafi’s followers to abandon his “murderous ways” and join the opposition. “We must hasten the decomposition of the system and the entourage of Qaddafi by telling them there’s a way to get out,” Sarkozy said. “Those who abandon Qaddafi in his crazy and murderous ways can join in the reconstruction of a new, democratic Libya.”

The UN No Fly Resolution is far more sweeping than most media report. It is a de facto declaration of military, economic and financial warfare against a sovereign state and an established, functioning government. In addition to authorizing the No Fly Zone, the UN Resolution establishes a "ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in order to help protect civilians," other than "humanitarian" flights and flights sanctioned by the UN and the Arab League.

It orders member states of the UN to stop any Libyan owned, operated or registered aircraft from taking off, landing or overflying their territory without prior approval from a UN committee monitoring sanctions. It allows member states "to inspect in their territory, including airports and seaports, and on the high seas, vessels and aircraft bound to or from Libya," if a country has "reasonable grounds" to believe they contain military items or armed mercenaries.

To put the nail in the Libyan coffin, it freezes assets of five financial institutions: Libya's central bank, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Libyan Foreign Bank, Libyan Africa Investment Portfoilio, and the Libyan National Oil Corporation.11

The curious Libya 'opposition'

The so-called Libyan opposition itself is a hodge-podge mix of political opportunists, ex-CIA-trained Mujahideen guerillas such as Abdel Hakim al-Hasidi of the so-called Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who openly admits to close ties to al-Qaeda going back to Afghanistan.12 That certainly raises the level of incredibility of Washington's most bizarre military crusade of recent times.

As well, the opposition includes former senior Gaddafi regime members who saw greener grass on the US, British and French-backed opposition side, and outright cutthroats who, encouraged by Washington, London or Paris smelled the chance to grab control of one of the richest lands on Earth.

Their "opposition," unlike in Tunisia or elsewhere, was never "non-violent." It was an armed revolt from the git-go, a war of tribe against tribe, not of surging aspirations for democracy. NATO member countries are being told by Washington to back one band of tyrants to oust another whose agenda does not comply with what the Pentagon calls Full Spectrum Dominance.

The Libyan "opposition" for most of the world is still a vague CNN or BBC image of stone-throwing youth crying out to the well-positioned cameras for "freedom, democracy." In reality it is far different. As George Friedman of Stratfor pointed out, the "Libyan uprising consisted of a cluster of tribes and personalities, some within the Libyan government, some within the army and many others longtime opponents of the regime." He adds, "it would be an enormous mistake to see what has happened in Libya as a mass, liberal democratic uprising. The narrative has to be strained to work in most countries, but in Libya, it breaks down completely."13

It emerges that the main opposition to Gaddafi comes from two very curious organizations—the National Front for the Salvation of Libya and a bizarre group calling itself the Islamic Emirate of Barqa, the former name of the North-Western part of Libya. Its leadership claims the group is made up of former al-Qaeda fighters previously released from jail. Their record of bloodshed is impressive to date.

The main opposition group in Libya now is the National Front for the Salvation of Libya which is reported to be funded by Saudi Arabia, the CIA and French Intelligence. They joined with other opposition groups to become the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition. It was that organization that called for the "Day of Rage" that plunged Libya into chaos on February 17.14

The key figure in the National Front for the Salvation of Libya is one Ibrahim Sahad who conveniently enough lives in Washington. According to the Library of Congress archives, Sahad is the same man the CIA used in their failed attempt at a Libyan coup of 1984. The Library of Congress confirms that the CIA trained and supported the NFSL both before and after the failed coup.

On March 11 the French government became the first nation to recognize the National Front for the Salvation (sic) of Libya, which is now operating under the amorphous cover of an umbrella group calling itself the Libyan National Transitional Council, which is little more than the old NFSL, a group financed for years by the Saudis, the French and the CIA. 15

The new Transitional Council umbrella group is little more reportedly than the old NFSL -- an unelected group of aged monarchist business exiles and now defectors from Gaddafi who smell opportunity to grab a giant piece of the oil pie, and have Saudi, French and CIA backing to drive their dreams of glory. These are the ones on whose behalf now NATO is fighting.

The National Transitional Council of the Libyan Republic, led by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, is based in Benghazi and controls most of the eastern half of the country. France and Portugal have so far officially recognized the Council as the sole "legitimate representative" of Libya.

The National Transitional Council also includes such former Gaddafi regime insiders as ex-Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil and former Interior Minister General Abdel Fattah Younis, who defected earlier from the Gaddafi regime. They lobbied Washington and other Western governments for support soon after their formation. They want to mount an armed offensive against the government-controlled areas in the west to overthrow Gaddafi. That is hardly an innocent spontaneous Twitter democracy revolt, though the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt and elsewhere have been far from spontaneous either.16

In early March the Transitional Council sent their de facto foreign minister Ali al-Essawi and Abdel-Jalil crony Mahmoud Jebril to Paris where the French government, clearly smelling an opportunity to take the inside track of a future regime in Tripoli, gave the first recognition of the transitional council as the "legitimate representative" of the Libyan people.17 Immediately after, France became the leading advocate for a French-led (of course) military intervention on behalf of their new-found rebel friends in Bengazi.

While the French seem to have an inside track with the diplomatic wing of the rag-tag Bengazi rebels, the British seem to have focused their attention on the military wing, where former Gaddafi Interior Minister General Abdel Fattah Younis seems to be their man. Younis is now in command of a National Transitional Council “army.” 18

Hillary Clinton also moved to firm US ties to the insurgents. On March 13 she reportedly met in Cairo—now a place firmly in command of a Pentagon-dependent Egyptian military council after the Twitter youth had served their purpose of deposing Mubarak—with leaders of the opposition rebels. Announcing her meeting, she stated, “We are reaching out to the opposition inside and outside of Libya. I will be meeting with some of those figures both here in the United States and when I travel next week to discuss what more the United States and others can do,” she said. 19

In the western part of Libya, the contending opposition is led by the second group France has recognized, something calling itself ambitiously, the Islamic Emirate of Barqa, a former name for the northwestern part of the country. That group has been described as a group of "aged exiles and defectors from the former Gaddafi regime...waving the old King Idris monarchist flag." 20 Not exactly a revolutionary youth Twitter movement of surging, demographically-driven aspirations.

Conclusion

As of this writing, what is clear is that far more is at stake for Washington and its "coalition of the unwilling" in the launching of a new war over Libya than anyone is admitting. If this marks the first shots in a new world war, or if various governments within and outside NATO have the strength to resist the persuasive power of the Pentagon war apparatus is unclear. What is clear is that the recent events that started in Tunisia at the end of 2010 are but part of a colossally large and increasingly desperate strategy of US-orchestrated "creative destruction." To date it has been anything but creative for those living in the affected region.

Notes:

1 David Rothscum, The World Cheers as the CIA Plunges Libya Into Chaos, Global Research, March 2, 2011, accessed in http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23474.

2 Ibid.

3 Richard Falk, Kicking the intervention habit: Should talks of intervention in Libya turn into action, it would be illegal, immoral and hypocritical, 10 March, 2011, accessed in http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201138143448786661.html.

4 Ibid.

5 M K Bhadrakumar, America's man in Egypt Amr Moussa pushes No Fly Zone call through Arab League with Saudi help but African Union rejects it, Asia Times, March 15, 2011, accessed in http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC15Ak02.html.

6 Ibid.

7 Daily Mail Reporter, Germans pull forces out of NATO as Libyan coalition falls apart, London Daily Mail, 23 March, 2011.

8 David Rockefeller, Memoirs, New York, Random House, 2002, p. 405.

9 F. William Engdahl, Egypt's Revolution: Creative Destruction for a 'Greater Middle East'?, February 5, 2011, accessed in www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

10 CNN Wire Staff, Obama hopes resurgent Libyan opposition can topple Gadhafi, CNN, March 23, 2011, accessed in http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/22/obama.cnn.interview/index.html.

11 UN security council resolution 1973 (2011) on Libya, reprinted in The Guardian, March 17, 2011, accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/17/un-security-council-resolution.

12 Praveen Swami, et al, Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links, The Telegraph, London, March 26, 2011.

13 George Friedman, Libya, the West and the Narrative of Democracy, Stratfor, March 21, 2011, accessed in http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/friedman_on_geopolitics.

14David Rothscum, op cit.

15Ibid.

16 Anthony Shadid and Kareem Fahim, Opposition in Libya Struggles to Form a United Front, The New York Times, March 8, 2011.

17 Stratfor, Libya's Opposition Leadership Comes into Focus, March 20, 2011, accessed in http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110307-libyas-opposition-leadership-comes-focus.

18 Ibid.

19Robert Dreyfus, Will the World Recognize the Libyan Opposition?, The Nation, March 10, 2011, accessed in http://www.thenation.com/blog/159138/will-world-recognize-libyan-opposition.

20 Matt Checker, Reasons against "intervention" in Libya, accessed in http://www.spiral-m.de/blog.html

F. William Engdahl is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by F. William Engdahl

Weight of Chains | NEW TRAILER

Fukushima Reactors Catastrophe: Radiation Exposure, Lies and Cover-up

Fukushima Reactors Catastrophe: Radiation Exposure, Lies and Cover-up “Should the public discover the true health cost[s] of nuclear pollution, a cry would rise from all parts of the world and people would refuse to cooperate passively with their own death.” Dr. Rosalie Bertell. “No Immediate Danger,” xiii. I write this article not just as a long-time environmental writer and author, but also as a survivor of the horrific 2003 1-million-acre Southern California FIRESTORM that took many lives (both human and millions of animals) during the three-and-a-half-weeks of out-of-control blazes and 400-foot-high walls of flames throughout San Diego and Orange counties. This nightmare blanketed a vast area from over the border into Tijuana up to just south of Los Angeles. Many “back county” areas and national and state parks were also destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of us could not evacuate because planes were grounded and the flames crossed over many freeways. Death and destruction continued for many years after. Many of my friends have died since then, due to fire-related illnesses, as the entire area was blanketed with a spew of toxins. As with the tragedy of September 11th, when Christy Todd Whitman said New York’s air was okay, our local “public” officials refused to monitor the air. Finally, unable to breathe, even with a high-tech respirator, I called the county with warnings. San Diego air “quality” samples were posted for only three days and then conveniently disappeared. Toxins were off the scale. We had just 15 minutes to evacuate, when the helicopter flew overhead at 7 a.m. My entire neighborhood of 2,000 was destroyed, as well as 90 percent of all the wildlife! It was deliberately torched, and people and animals died. When we were finally allowed “home,” all that was left was burn, ash, skeletons of trees, and hot soil. I know what it means, day-to-day, to just barely survive a countywide catastrophe. I know what deep trauma is all about. I know how everyone in charge lies and deceives those of us in extremis. I know that when a place in the US is declared a “Federal Disaster” area, this quite literally means: “tough, you are on your own. There will be no help.” My heart aches for the people in Japan who are directly in harm’s way, while their government continues to make nuclear corporate profits the priority over the safety of millions of Japanese. It is criminal; and it happens all over. During and for years after the FIRESTORM, public officials lied and deceived us. Insurance companies refused to honor thousands of policies, and many of us had to take them to court…but even the “justice” system is rigged. From the mayor and fire officials to the governor and a so-called “Blue Ribbon Commission,” the 14 arson fires and their causes were all covered-up. No one was held accountable. No one told us the truth. Further, we barely had any real help in clean-up or recovery –even if we had insurance. Knee-deep in warm ash, I shoveled it myself over seven-and-a-half months, with only 5 days of help. Thousands of us had to do it ourselves…even to getting our own Relief Center set up –again, because officials gave us the run-around. A week-and-a-half into the Fukushima nuclear disaster, this is what is happening: 1. There are 4 reactors in various stages of collapse, releasing untold amount of dangerous radiation. Two more reactors may also be at risk. 2. The public generally has not been told that, in addition, there are 40 years of spent fuel rods on this already contaminated site. See: www.infowars.com/alert-fukushima-coverup-40-years-of-spent-nuclear-rods-blown-sky-high 3. Other fuel rods are fully exposed (meaning, unknown amounts of release of radiation) because they are no longer covered with the necessary 45-feet of water. 4. Last week the US refused to post online whatever radiation levels they were monitoring as radiation hits the West Coast and comes East. Then there were several reports that their monitors [all of them?] went off line, or crashed. It is doubtful that any official will report the truth. See: www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/you-can-view-official-epa-radiation.html The lies, criminality, and cover-up continue. This is how a totally broken system “works.” See: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23676 and http://www.infowars.com/pentagon-cover-up-of-data-on-fukushima-disaster Here is some additional excellent information about reactors and the extreme dangers of nuclear power: 1. Keith Harmon Snow’s “Nuclear Apocalypse in Japan. Lifting the Veil of Nuclear Catastrophe and cover-up”: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23764 2. A report from the New York Academy of Science has been published on “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment”: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23745 3. List of US nuclear plants: www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist1.htm#MidWest Realistically, the Japanese catastrophe could last months or years, given the half-life of many radioactive particles. We don’t know, because no official or agency is reporting the truth, while we all are in danger of radiation exposure. How much? For how long? What kind (cesium, iodine, plutonium, strontium, uranium, all radioactive and each with different half life)? I think this catastrophe will turn out to be far worse than Chernobyl because again profits taken precedence over safety. See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtriAolCyow&feature=player_embedded and www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-reactor.html?ref=asia I URGE EVERYONE who has access to a good Geiger counter or other monitoring technology to monitor radiation levels –most especially on the West Coast; and all other US states, as it comes East on the Jet Stream. Some radiation has already been reported in Washington state. One website is already monitoring the situation in real time in Santa Monica (near Los Angeles), CA: www.enviroreporter.com/2011/03/enviroreporter-coms-radiation-station But we need much more collecting and reporting of radiation data. This is extremely urgent! Remember, for the past 12-15 years, our weather and air have been altered and deliberately manipulated. All along the Pacific Coast, from San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, we need real-time radiation figures. This goes for Canada, too. We can post these results on this website and others, so we can have an accurate collective picture of the on-going radiation dangers we may be facing throughout North America. This is a highly dangerous, yet invisible and real threat to our safety and wellbeing –most especially for children who are most vulnerable! [I also remind readers that the ENTIRE Gulf of Mexico, and its nearby southern states, continues to be poisoned daily in an unmitigated crisis!] From the very beginning, nuclear energy has been totally unsafe. Even early on in the 1950s, when there were nuclear tests in Nevada, citizens were never warned about the extreme toxicity and dangers to which they were exposed. For our entire lives, the nuclear industry has done decades-long media campaigns to give us misinformation and lies. It’s all about greed, but never about our safety or well-being. The US government has indemnified these companies, just as they have done with the pharmaceutical companies and their dangerous drugs. We are all expendable, except as uninformed consumers to buy their toxic products, and then for the next generation to repeat this insanity. With each new generation that is less well educated (dumbed-down, and often on prescription drugs from an early age), there is less information, no accountability, but millions more people who now are far more ill from an environment rife with thousands of poisons that surround our every move. Some of the Nuclear Dangers include: 1. The reactors have design flaws, as does Fukushima’s Mark 1, built by GE. There are many of these same-designed reactors here in the US. On March 16, the NY Times reported some of these flaws. But, it is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg: www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16contain.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2 2. For radioactive nuclear waste, there is no safe or secure storage anywhere on this planet. There are 1,623 hazardous Superfund sites all over the US (such as Hanford Nuclear Reservation, built in 1942, near Richland, WA, and the now highly polluted Columbia River) leaking radioactive poisons on a daily basis for decades. There is another working nuclear facility, San Onofre, located between San Diego and Los Angeles along the beach right on the Pacific Ocean. This facility was built on the San Andreas fault, an active earthquake zone. The nuclear contamination is enormous and, every day, this puts us all at risk. Dr. Rosalie Bertell, one of the world’s leading authorities who has written extensively about the spectacular flaws and true costs of nuclear energy, notes: “The problem of secure storage of nuclear waste…remains dangerous for millennia.” [See also her quote at the beginning of this article.] 3. The half-life of many radioactive elements is thousands of years. There is no safe level of exposure! It’s all Orwellian media hype and corporate lies. The plutonium fuel used at Fukushima Unit 3 reactor uses MOX [mixed oxide], a plutonium-uranium fuel mixture. A single milligram of MOX is 2-million times more deadly that enriched uranium. NOTE: Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years; and Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700-million years. 4. Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic bomb survivors are still being monitored. Birth defects, cancers, and miscarriages are high, just as these continue to be so at Chernobyl. This April 25, it will be 25 years since Chernobyl’s nuclear catastrophe. Sterility figures (for human and all other life) continue to increase. Nothing is healed. Nothing is fixed for millions of people. The children are most vulnerable, and suffer enormously. 5. The horrific on-going crisis in Iraq [an ancient culture was illegally invaded and destroyed!] is also greatly exacerbated due to US bombings of Depleted (Radioactive) Uranium, poisoning the entire population. Now, illness and birth defects are common throughout the entire Iraqi population. It is all for control of their oil. Afghanis were also illegally bombed with DU. Is Libya next with yet another illegal invasion and DU bombings? None of the real and tragic stories are ever reported by the mainstream corporate-controlled media. This is in violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. This is heinous! However, it all is irrelevant how much harm is perpetrated on innocent civilian populations when criminals are in charge. War is big business, while the rest of our economy is in a state of deliberately orchestrated collapse. Connecting the Dots of Harm The new report (#53) from GEAB [Global Europe Assessment Bulletin] published on March 17 from Brussels also is important news not generally reported. GEAB has been quite accurate in their evaluations, as the US economy (everything but military expenditures) continues to be intentionally destroyed: www.leap2020.eu/Global-systemic-crisis-Second-half-of-2011-Get-ready-for-the-meltdown-of-the-US-Treasury-Bond-market_a6091.html Last week world-renowned author Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, gave a lecture in Montreal on the dangers of the nuclear age. Dr. Caldicott has spent almost 40 years educating the public about the serious medical dangers surrounding this topic and the now very urgently needed changes in human behavior to stop the extensive environmental devastation. Although the lecture has not been posted online, here is a recent interview (March 12): www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23663 Finally, there are other enormous concerns regarding our safety and well-being, because there is absolutely NO PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE in place. That is the elite insider’s plan: grave harm! We MUST address these vital issues on a grassroots level, because those in charge are the ones causing us such extreme injury. We will need the help of independent scientists and health-care providers. It is a given that we no longer have any real air “quality.” What we are breathing with every single breath is a hazardous, now plasma-state, spew.(1) This impacts our immune system at the celluar DNA level. How will the thousands of tons of aerosolized poisons in Chemtrails, sprayed around the world, interact with radioactive materials (especially those with a long half life)? What might be the detrimental synergistic interaction(s) among the nano-Morgellons-fibers (that Clifford Carnicom has been researching microscopically for a decade(2), found in human, animals, and environmental samples), the nano-particles of fiber-coated aluminum, and now-unknown quantities of various radioactive particles? How might all of this also interact with possibly thousands of tons of deadly Corexit 9500 dispersant sprayed (on land and over water for many months) and the unconscionable release of “Synthia,” a genetically modified synthetic genome bacteria now replicating exponentially throughout the Gulf of Mexico.(3) Tragically, the Gulf is now a biological and chemical war zone. However, it is all happening on an invisible level. This hazardous Gulf spew is in addition to what is heading our way from Japan to North America and thence to Europe and Asia. We must wake up. There is much we can do! Will YOU help? NOTES: 1. Clifford Carnicom discusses the plasma state and other vital environmental issues in a recent web interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTVpsmBNvL8 2. “The Biggest Crime of All Time.” March 1, 2011: www.carnicom.com/bio2011-2.htm 3. “Synthia”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NejKdYA05M; “Permanent Biological Contamination of the Gulf”: http://worldvisionportal.org/wvpforum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1354 and Michael Edwards. “It’s not wise to fool other Nature.” This is part 1 of 4: http://worldvisionportal.org/wvpforum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=1031 Essential reading: Dr. Rosalie Bertell. “No Immediate Danger” and “ Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War.” Theo Colburn et al. “Our Stolen Future.” Pierpaolo Mittica et al. “Chernobyl. The Hidden Legacy.” London: Trolley, Ltd., 2007. There is a section in this book written by Dr. Bertell. Educator and environmental writer Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is the author of the highly acclaimed book, “The Uterine Crisis.” London’s “The Ecologist” calls this book “an inspiration.” She is an Associate of the Carnicom Institute. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Ilya Sandra Perlingieri

The Next Nagasaki - Nuclear Fears Stalk The World

A second Hiroshima is happening with the partial meltdowns at Fukushima 1 nuclear reactors. We can only hope the eventual toll in lives comes nowhere near close to that of the world's first atomic catastrophe.

The international community is now asking: Where will be the next Nagasaki?

In the US with its 23 aging reactors of identical design as Fukushima's GE Mark 1 reactors, along with another dozen more of slightly modified design?

In France, the world's most nuclear-dependent country?

Probably not in Germany or Venezuela, which are cutting back their nuclear programs, nor Britain, the world leader in conversion to offshore wind power. Or even China, a solar-energy paragon now scaling back plans for new nuclear plants.

Many people are also wondering: How can the only nation that ever experienced atomic bombings become so trusting in nuclear energy? The answer is both simple and complicated. In the modern economy, the energy to run machines is intertwined with national security, foreign policy and warfare.

Uranium-based Progress

World War II was in essence a contest for fossil fuel. An energy-hungry Japan invaded China for its coal and Indonesia for oil reserves. Nazi Germany's blitzkriegs were aimed at oil fields in Romania, Libya and the Caspian Sea region. The United States and Britain fought the Axis Powers to retain their control over the world's fossil fuel, and they're still doing the same in conflicts with OPEC nations and to control Central Asia and East Asia's continental shelf.

To prevent the recurrence of another Pacific War, Washington tried to ween postwar Japan from its dependence on coal and oil. As Japanese industry revived by the time of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the US pushed Japan to adopt the "safe and clean" energy of the future - nuclear power. General Electric and Westinghouse were soon given charge of installing a network of nuclear power plants across the island nation, while Tokyo was inducted into the US-launched International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Unlike older fuel resources, nuclear power was the sole proprietary right of the US, which not only dominated uranium mining but also production of boron, the neutron absorbing mineral needed for controlled nuclear reactions.American labs including Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oakridge are the graduate schools for the world's nuclear physicists.

In the same period of heady infatuation with technology, the New York World's Fair of 1964-65 was a debutante ball for a brighter "universal" future based on atom-splitting. The General Electric pavilion was called "Progressland" with a multimedia show featuring a "plasma explosion" of plutonium fusion for awe-struck visitors. Japan served as the model of international citizenship and cooperation under the American aegis of atomic power.The Fukushima nuclear plant designed by GE was commissioned in 1971.

The modern myth of safe nuclear power was alternatively resisted and grudgingly accepted by the Japanese public. In more recent years, once negative perceptions toward nuclear provider Tokyo Electric Power company have shifted. A young computer-graphics designer in Tokyo told me that his generation grew up thinking "TEPCO has a god-like aura of infallibility and power greater than the government." My experience as an editor inside the Japanese press reveals how its corporate image was cunningly promoted with "greenwash" commercials falsely claiming environmental-friendliness and hefty ad revenues for television and print media.

Atomic Energy in the Cold War

Japan was no stranger to atomic energy. During the Second World War, the Allies and the Axis competed for an exotic new energy source -uranium. While the Manhattan Project was secretly crafting the atomic bomb in New Mexico, Japan opened uranium mines in Konan, North Korea, which now are the source of Pyongyang's nuclear energy program.

Following the Allied victory, the Soviet Union aimed to break the American nuclear monopoly by establishing a protectorate called the Republic of East Turkestan in China's northwest province of Xinjiang. The rich uranium deposits near Burjin, in the foothills of the Altai mountains, provided the fissionable material for development of Soviet nuclear capability. The hastily dug Soviet mines left behind the curse of radiation disease for the predominantly Uyghur and ethnic Kazakh inhabitants as well as to downstream communities in eastern Kazakhstan. Kazakh and Chinese scientists have since run soil remediation projects, using isotope-gathering trees to cleanse the irradiated land.

To prevent the Soviets from amassing a nuclear arsenal, the Truman administration initiated a top-secret program to control the world's entire uranium supply. Operation Murray Hill focused on sabotaging the Altai mining operations. Douglas MacKiernan, operating under the cover of US vice consul in Urumchi, organized a covert team of anticommunist Russians and Kazakh guerrillas to bomb the Soviet mining facilities. Forced to flee toward Lhasa, MacKiernan was shot dead in case of mistaken identity by a Tibetan border guard and is honored as the CIA's first agent killed in action.

The covert global operations of Operation Murray Hill are carried on today by the CIA's counter-proliferation bureau. A glimpse into its clandestine operations is provided in "Fair Game", the book and movie about Valerie Plame, the agent exposed under the Bush administration. Battles open and covert against nuclear foes have been fought as far afield as Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, Argentina, Indonesia, Myanmar and Iraq as well as against usual suspects Iran and North Korea.

Threat to the American Public

The partial meltdowns at Fukushima 1 are putting Washington into a quandary. Had these radiation releases occurred in North Korea or Iran, Washington could have summoned UN Security Council sessions, demanded IAEA inspections and imposed tough sanctions and possibly military intervention. The meltdowns, however, are from American-designed reactors operating under protocols created by the US.

The Obama administration has, therefore, downplayed the seriousness of the current nuclear drama shaking its security ally Japan. In an unconvincing defensive tone, the American president has backed nuclear energy as part of "the energy mix" supporting the US economy. His pro-nuclear stance is irrational and irresponsible, when smaller allied countries including Britain, the Netherlands and Germany are making massive investments in offshore wind farms in the North Sea to end their dependency on nuclear and fossil fuels.

The international community is well aware of the double standard in policy. The US quietly applauded Israeli air strikes against Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear-energy plant in 1981 and has since demanded ever-stricter sanctions against Tehran and Pyongyang. Yet Washington refuses to lead by example, shrugging off the anti-nuclear movement's pleas to stop plans for new reactors and shunning calls from the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for total nuclear disarmament. America's campaign for an atomic monopoly, or at least nuclear dominance, is driving smaller powers toward obtaining a deterrence capability. These nations aren't some "axis of evil"; they're just playing the survival game by the rules - not the words - set by Washington.

In the days and months ahead, America's own citizens will be cringing from the dreaded arrival of radioactive fallout. Terrorism is now practically forgotten when a much wider threat may soon blanket American skies from "sea to shining sea." Unless Washington moves rapidly toward repudiation of its own nuclear addiction, the specter of another Nagasaki will overshadow the land of the free and home of the brave.

Yoichi Shimatsu is Former Editor of The Japan Times Weekly


Yoichi Shimatsu is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Yoichi Shimatsu



The Next Nagasaki - Nuclear Fears Stalk The World

Radioactivity in Food: “There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,”

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) expressed concern over recent reports that radioactivity from the ongoing Fukushima accident is present in the Japanese food supply. While all food contains radionuclides, whether from natural sources, nuclear testing or otherwise, the increased levels found in Japanese spinach and milk pose health risks to the population. PSR also expressed alarm over the level of misinformation circulating in press reports about the degree to which radiation exposure can be considered “safe.”


According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual’s risk for the development of cancer.

“There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,” said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water.”

“Consuming food containing radionuclides is particularly dangerous. If an individual ingests or inhales a radioactive particle, it continues to irradiate the body as long as it remains radioactive and stays in the body,”said Alan H. Lockwood, MD, a member of the Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “The Japanese government should ban the sale of foods that contain radioactivity levels above pre-disaster levelsand continue to monitor food and water broadly in the area. In addition, the FDA and EPA must enforce existing regulations and guidelines that address radionuclide content in our food supply here at home.”

As the crisis in Japan goes on, there are an increasing number of sources reporting that 100 milliSieverts (mSv) is the lowest dose at which a person isat risk for cancer. Established research disproves this claim. A dose of 100 mSv creates a one in 100 risk of getting cancer, buta dose of 10 mSv still gives a one in 1,000 chance of getting cancer, and a dose of 1 mSv gives a one in 10,000 risk.

Even if the risk of getting cancer for one individual from a given level of food contamination is low, if thousands or millions of people are exposed, then some of those people will get cancer.

Recent reports indicate the Japanese disaster has released more iodine-131 than cesium-137. Iodine-131 accumulates in the thyroid, especially of children, with a half-life of over 8 days compared to cesium-137, which has a half-life of just over 30 years. Regardless of the shorter half-life, doses of iodine-131 are extremely dangerous, especially to pregnant women and children, and can lead to incidents of cancer, hypothyroidism, mental retardation and thyroid deficiency, among other conditions.

“Children are much more susceptible to the effects of radiation, and stand a much greater chance of developing cancer than adults,” said Dr. Andrew Kanter, president-elect of PSR’s Board. “So it is particularly dangerous when they consume radioactive food or water.”

All food containssome radioactivity as a result of natural sources, but also from prior above-ground nuclear testing, the Chernobyl accident, and releases from nuclear reactors and from weapons facilities. The factors that will affect the radioactivityin food after the Fukushima accident are complicated. These include the radionuclides thatthe nuclear reactor emits, weather patterns that control the wind direction and where the radionuclides are deposited, characteristics of the soil (e.g., clays bind nuclides, sand does not) and the nature of the food(leafy plants like spinach are more likely to be contaminated than other plants like rice that have husks, etc.).However, radiation can be concentrated many times in the food chain and any consumption adds to the cumulative risk of cancer and other diseases.

“Reports indicate that the total radioactive releases from the Fukushima reactor have been relatively small so far. If this is the case, then the health effects to the overall population will be correspondingly small,” said Ira Helfand, MD, a member of the Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “But it is not true to say that it is "safe" to release this much radiation; some people will get cancer and die as a result.”


Radioactivity in Food: “There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,”

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Campaign: What are Human Rights?

Education is the foundation and catalyst for changing the state of human rights in the world, but educators need effective materials and tools they can use to easily incorporate human rights in their curriculum. Recognizing this, United for Human Rights has the answer: the Bringing Human Rights to Life Education Package. Free to educators, it gives teachers and educators everywhere a resource to help bring the concepts of human rights to life and make them a reality in the hearts, minds and actions of those who study the subject.



Universal Declaration of Human Rights Campaign: What are Human Rights?

Obama’s Bay of Pigs in Libya: Imperialist Aggression Shreds UN Charter

By Dr. Webster G. Tarpley

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23847

Global Research, March 22, 2011
http://tarpley.net/


On March 19, US and British cruise missiles joined with French and other NATO combat aircraft in Operation Odyssey Dawn/Operation Ellamy, a neo-imperialist bombing attack under fake humanitarian cover against the sovereign state of Libya. Acting under UN Security Council resolution 1973, US naval forces in the Mediterranean on Saturday night local time fired 112 cruise missiles at targets which the Pentagon claimed were related to Libya’s air defense system. But Mohammed al-Zawi, the Secretary General of the Libyan Parliament, told a Tripoli press conference that the “barbaric armed attack” and “savage aggression” had hit residential areas and office buildings as well as military targets, filling the hospitals of Tripoli and Misurata with civilian victims. Zawi accused the foreign powers of acting to protect a rebel leadership which contains notorious terrorist elements. The Libyan government repeated its request for the UN to send international observers to report objectively on events in Libya.

The attacking forces are expected to deploy more cruise missiles, Predator drones, and bombers, seeking to destroy the Libyan air defense system as a prelude to the systematic decimation of Libyan ground units. International observers have noted that US intelligence about Libya may be substandard, and that many cruise missiles may indeed have struck non-military targets.

Libya had responded to the UN vote by declaring a cease-fire, but Obama and Cameron brushed that aside. On Saturday, France 24 and al-Jazeera of Qatar, international propaganda networks hyping the attacks, broadcast hysterical reports of Qaddafi’s forces allegedly attacking the rebel stronghold of Bengazi. They showed a picture of a jet fighter being shot down and claimed this proved Qaddafi was defying the UN by keeping up his air strikes. It later turned out that the destroyed plane had belonged to the rebel air force. Such coverage provided justification for the bombing attacks starting a few hours later. The parallels to the Kuwait incubator babies hoax of 1990 were evident. Qaddafi loyalists said Saturday’s fighting was caused by rebel assaults on government lines in the hopes of provoking an air attack, plus local residents defending themselves against the rebels.

At the UN vote, the Indian delegate correctly pointed out that the decision to start the war had been made on the basis of no reliable information whatsoever, since UN Secretary General Ban-ki Moon’s envoy to Libya had never reported to the Security Council. The bombing started shortly after a glittering Paris summit “in support of the Libyan people,” where Sarkozy, Cameron, Hillary Clinton, Stephen Harper of Canada and other imperialist politicians had strutted and postured.

Token contingents from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia were supposed to take part in the attack, but were nowhere to be seen, while some Arab states were expected to provide financial support. The minimum estimated cost of maintaining a no-fly zone over Libya for one year is estimated in the neighborhood of $15 billion – enough to fund WIC high-protein meals for impoverished US mothers and infants for two years.

From no-fly zone to regime change

The alleged purpose of the bombing was to establish a no-fly zone and to protect a force of CIA-sponsored Libyan rebels composed of the Moslem Brotherhood, elements of the Libyan government and army subverted by the CIA (including such sinister figures as former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil and former Interior Minister Fattah Younis), and monarchist Senussi tribesmen holding the cities of Benghazi and Tobruk. But twin Friday ultimatums by President Obama and British premier Cameron, plus a speech by Harper, made clear that the goal was the ouster of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi and regime change in the North African oil-producing nation, whose proven reserves of crude are the largest on that continent.

Prospects for military success are uncertain, despite the apparent NATO preponderance. No clear military objective has been articulated, and disagreements about the scope of the war are likely. If Qaddafi’s tanks and infantry are engaged in house to house battles with the rebels in cities like Bengazi and Tobruk, it will be hard for NATO to bring its air superiority to bear without massacring large numbers of civilians.

From hope and change to shock and awe

While Obama’s action is being widely compared to the Bush-Cheney 2003 attack on Iraq, parallels to the April 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco are also strong. In that instance, a force of anti-Castro Cubans organized by the CIA was militarily defeated in an attempt to take over Cuba, resulting in calls from Allen Dulles to President Kennedy for air strikes and a ground invasion. Kennedy rejected those calls and fired the Dulles CIA leadership. Obama, faced by the military collapse of a CIA force in Libya, has ordered such bombing, opening a second phase of the present US debacle.

The rebel region of Cerenaica has long been the scene of Moslem brotherhood agitation against Qaddafi, much of it fomented from across the Egyptian border with US assistance. After the failed 1995 assassination attempt against the Libyan leader reported by MI-5 defector David Shayler (for which MI-6 paid £100,000 to an al Qaeda subsidiary), eastern Libya was the scene of a protracted Islamist insurrection. In the wake of events in Tunisia and Egypt, it has become clear that the CIA has stipulated a worldwide alliance against existing Arab governments with the reactionary and oligarchical Muslim brotherhood, which was created by British intelligence in Egypt in the late 1920s. Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), another CIA front, is trumpeting full support for the rebels on its website.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was first to recognize the Benghazi rebels, calling for a no-fly zone and air strikes a week earlier, seconded by British Prime Minister Cameron. Until about 18 hours before the UN vote, top US officials like Secretary of State Clinton and Defense Secretary Gates were stressing the difficulties of a no-fly zone. French Foreign Minister Juppé lamented that it was already too late for a no-fly zone. Then, the US abruptly demanded a no-fly zone plus a blank check for aerial bombing. Diplomatic observers are puzzled by Obama’s turnaround. Was he being blackmailed by the British and the French, the same imperialist coalition that invaded Egypt to seize the Suez Canal back in 1956? Because of Obama’s decision, the US is now at war with a fourth Moslem nation after Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. In Pakistan, the simmering conflict is threatening to escalate into the open at any time in the wake of the scandal around CIA contractor Ray Davis, accused by the Pakistanis as a terrorist controller.

The Arab League, surprising many analysts, had voted unanimously for a no-fly zone over Libya. The African Union, by contrast, has resolutely opposed foreign intervention. Western diplomats have discounted the AU position, giving rise to suspicions of racism. These are reinforced by reports that the anti-Qaddafi rebels have lynched a number of black Africans, claiming that they were mercenaries hired by Qaddafi.

Interference in Libyan internal affairs violates UN Charter

Diplomatic observers were shocked by the sweeping resolution passed by the Security Council, which allows “all necessary measures” to be used against Libya. The United Nations Charter strictly limits Chapter 7 military actions to threats to international peace and security, which Libya has never represented, but rules out interference in internal affairs of member states. The pretext cited in this case was the protection of defenseless civilians, but it is clear that the rebels constitute an armed military force in their own right. Since no state can be an aggressor on its own territory, the Security Council resolution stands in flagrant violation of the UN Charter. Russia, China, Brazil, Germany, and India abstained. The resolution contains an arms embargo against Libya which the US is already violating by arming the rebels through Egypt.

Among US officials demanding aggression, UN ambassador Susan Rice, Samantha Power of the National Security Council, and Secretary of State Clinton have shown that they are as bellicose as any neocon of the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz school.

The Libyan Air Force has 13 airbases and some 374 combat capable aircraft, many of them obsolete. Military observers will be watching the performance of Qaddafi’s air defenses, thought to be based largely on older Russian SAMs. But Qaddafi also has mobile and hand-held surface to air missiles. During a 1986 bombing raid on Tripoli aimed at killing Qaddafi, the US lost one F-111 to Libyan fire. The Libyan Defense Ministry has warned that Libya would retaliate against incursions by striking at air and maritime traffic over the central Mediterranean. In 1986, Libya fired two Scud missiles at the US Coast Guard station on the Italian island of Lampedusa, but both missed. Whether Qaddafi has used his immense oil revenues to procure more capable modern anti-ship missiles of Russian design is another question that may be answered soon. A further problem for the aggressors is the March 19 supermoon, which will illuminate the night sky for several days; the preferred time for air attacks is the dark of the new moon.

The propaganda choreography of the current aggression, designed to mask Obama’s warmonger role, requires the right-wing leaders of Britain and France, the Suez 1956 partners, to take the lead. Obama has assumed a low profile, not attending then Paris conference, not making a formal Oval Office address to the American people, and letting the French attack first. Obama is visiting Brazil. This charade is supposed to placate the anti-US hatred of the Arab street. The result is that the inferior Anglo-French military equipment and command structures may contribute to unpleasant reverses for the aggressors, particularly if Sarkozy’s Napoleonic delusions lead him to meddle in military decisions.

The Panavia Tornados to be deployed by London are obsolete; seven (6 UK, 1 Italian) were shot down by Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War twenty years ago. Eurofighter Typhoons are ultra-modern planes, but they have never been tested in real combat. The troubled French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle flies the Dassault Raffale, also largely untested in combat, plus the accident-plagued 30-year old Super-Étendard. Mirage F1s of various vintages, none recent, are expected. This equipment is vulnerable to attrition by Qaddafi’s countermeasures.

Anglo-American propaganda portrays Qaddafi as a kleptocrat. In reality, Libya is one of the most advanced developing countries, ranking 53 on the UN Human Development Index, making it the most developed society in Africa. Libya ranks ahead of Russia (65), Ukraine (69), Brazil (73), Venezuela (75) and Tunisia (81). The rate of incarceration is 61st in the world, below that of the Czech Republic, and far below that of the United States (1). Longevity has increased by 20 years under Qaddafi’s rule. Qaddafi, while suppressing political challenges, had shared the nation’s oil income better than the rest of OPEC.

US bureaucratic resistance to the imperial overstretch involved in a war with Libya on top of the three existing conflicts may also have been overcome thanks to the activation of pro-British networks in the US government. If so, this would repeat a long-established pattern. In 1990, Margaret Thatcher claimed to have performed an emergency “backbone implant” on George H.W. Bush, convincing him to retake Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. In 1999, Tony Blair pressed for the bombing of Serbia and then for a ground invasion; Clinton wisely declined at least the latter. In September 2001, Blair helped convince Bush the younger to use the 9/11 attack as a pretext for an attack on Afghanistan.

The purpose of this attack, in the context of the CIA’s spring 2011 campaign of putsches, palace coups, color revolutions, and people power insurrections, is to cripple the ability of US client states to seek alternative arrangements through alliances with Russia, China, Iran, and other states. The CIA onslaught takes the form of an attack on the nation state itself. In 2008, Serbia was partitioned. This year, Sudan is being carved in two, while Yemen is increasingly likely to face the same fate. The UN resolution of Libya mentions Bengazi specifically, indicating the clear intent of partitioning and balkanizing this nation along an east-west division. Other countries can expect similar treatment. It is time to end the destructive cycle of color revolutions before one of them turns into a civil war in a country like Belarus, where an internal clash could easily turn into a large-scale confrontation between Russia and NATO.