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WHERE in the world have you heard of a rebel group putting forth a whooping $1.7 million bounty reward on the head of their nation they are trying to oust? Where did these "rebels" get such a huge amount of assassination reward money? Only in Libya, circa 2011.
How amazingly rich these rebels are! Are they funding themselves? So rich rebels. Why would these rich "rebels" want to topple Muhammar Gadaffi? How did Gadaffi, who has held the reins of Libyan power for decades, allow them to amassa such wealth in the first place if their interests are so diametrically opposed?
Oh, I forgot, these so-called Libyan "rebels" are financial-experts-cum-time-management consultants who were able to wondrously establish their rebel central bank and national oil company, with temporary headquarters in Benghazi, in between attacks and rather early into their 'rebellion.' And they did all these, in between their civil war work without outside help. Right. NATO backs them militarily but not re the central bank and national oil company. Right. LOL.
So who believes such a ridiculous crap as to the terrorists', ahem, rebels' bounty money being indigenously sourced??? The absurdity of this crap is highlighted even more by US President Barack Obama's 'slip' of honesty when, with a straight face, he told the American public that the invasion, alright, "war" in Libya is to the U.S.' "strategic interest."
Needless to say, everyone who knows, or thinks sanely enough is aware that the "rebels" are doing but a lame front for the real rebels, I mean, terrorists, I mean, imperialists, I mean, aggressors, whatever--the member countries of the powerful NATO bloc, of course.
What Happened to the Western European Countries?
In the past, the Bald Eagle nation also exhibited aggression against Libya. This was of course in 1986 when the U.S. launched Operation El Dorado Canyon against the West African country in retaliation for the bombing of the La Belle disco club in West Berlin that killed 2 and wounded 80 American servicemen, among others. At that time--the closing years of the Cold War--it is no secret that Gadaffi used to engage in terrorist acts against the U.S. and its allies.
What is baffling is that back then in contrast to the now, the NATO member countries then did not seem to engage in wanton disregard of the sovereignty of less powerful nations, even going to the point of not accommodating the U.S. This explains why France and Spain refused to permit the Bald Eagle from using their airspace in launching the airs strikes against the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi.
Operation El Dorado, incidentally, killed 37 people, including the adopted daugher of Gadaffi, and wounded some 100 others. The Sidi Bala naval base and Gadaffi's personal compound were at least partially destroyed therein.
Comparing NATO today, with its despicable unlawful aggression--not at all anything like the 'humanitarian' mission as stated in the U.N. resolution--against a sovereign nation that is Libya, and NATO (minus US & UK) during the 1980s one gets to be stupefied by its diametrically opposed policies.
In other words, there is great illogic in Europe's current participation in the criminal mission of deposing Gaddafi and its stance during Operation El Dorado. It is as if the NATO of today evolved to become a predatory alliance that respects no longer sovereignty but instead engages in terroristic interference or some collective genocidal-level neo-colonial schemes.
Gadaffi's Been A Very Good Guy
If such is not the case, how come they've decided to discredit and depose Gadaffi at a time when he has turned his back on terrorism? In fact, Gadaffi was the first world leader to condemn Al Qaeda as a terrorist group in the early part of the 2000s. Not only that, the Libyan leader has even adopted progressive or humanitarian policies in the domestic and international arenas such that he was even scheduled to receive a humanitarian award from no less than the Human Rights Council of the United Nations March of this year. He was to be cited for his human rights record, including his stand on women's and gay rights, his opposition to the more oppressive features of Islamic sharia law, and his record on religious and ethnic tolerance and social inclusion.
The UN Human Rights Council working group report released on January 4, 2011 virtually serves as a glowing praise of Qaddafi's leadership in Human Rights. (Unexpectedly, the award was shelved when the United Nations suspended Libya from its membership in the UN HR Council following the rather infamous Resolution). Additionally, it is worth noting that based on human development indicators, Libya Arab Jamarihiya has been many notches higher than the rest of the world, much more the Arab states.
What could possibly account for two contrasting policies of NATO towards Libya a quarter of a century apart? This is assuming that Western countries' claim that Gadaffi engaged in violent suppression of dissent earlier this year is true and such an act equates in gravity to the bombing of the La Belle disco club.
Apparently, there are two major factors impacting on NATO that differed then and now. Back in 1986, there was still a balance of power in the world. One, there was NATO and there was WARSAW, the Soviet communist alliance, set in the great international context of the Cold War. Today, the communist bloc is no more, leaving only NATO as just about the only powerful alliance in this world, leaving the Western bloc free to flex its bully, nuclear-armed muscles.
Two, Western economies ain't like what it used to be. The leader of the NATO bloc, the U.S., along with the countries in the Euro zone, is in HUGE public debt crisis. Plagued by the continuing, if not worsening, global economic and financial crisis, the neoliberal economies of NATO are in dire straits. So dire thay they're so desperate to get hold of oil and Libya's other economic resources? The uncanny haste and financial and time management 'rebel' skills in putting up the Libyan rebel central bank and national oil company ring a bell?
Now, don't these two factors explain well how most Western European nations could behave so politically correct during the US/UK's Operation El Dorado in contrast to their criminal conspiratorial invasion today? One can reason that back in the 1980s, there was no ek-ek UN resolution for aggression against Libya. Ah, wasn't the controversial UN resolution limited to 'humanitarian' mission and not aggression, not airstrikes against civilian targets in Libya?
What Happened to the Western Media?
As stupefying as the discrepancy between NATO's 1986 and 2011 policies on aggression is the stark contrast in the Libyan war coverage by the Western and more independent non-Western media. Case in point: Libya has supposedly been "free" for days, if not a week or more.
If you'll ask the Western media--AP, BBC, CNN, Reuters, AFP, and even Al-Jazeera, which is financed by the proWestern Qatar Emir-- they mouth stories of Gadaffi being down and out of power. If one asks the Russian news agency Pravda, these 'news' reports form loads of Western media lies, inconsistency, and theatrics.
Western headlines has protractedly been screaming of Gadaffi’s fall and the success of the NATO-backed terrorists, ahem, “rebels.” As of a several days ago:
AP: “Libyan rebels: Key city, oil terminal seized”
Reuters: “Libya rebels strategic town (Zawiyah) near Triopli”
Agence France Presse (AFP: “Fighting erupts in Tripoli as rebels say regime is doomed.”
These Western reports are so opposed to those of Pravda:
However, as reported to Pravda.Ru by Libyan Armed Forces captain Hasan D., “Tripoli is still in our hands. When early reports of the assault and landing of the enemy emerged, our leader Muammar Gadaffii arrived wearing his military uniform, and his appearance caused unprecedented enthusiasm among the soldiers and the people. He ordered us to beat the rats and their Western backers. By the morning we partially drove them out of the city, partially destroyed, despite the fact that NATO aircraft are almost constantly hanging in the air, bombing residential neighborhoods. Hospitals are overwhelmed with the wounded. The West is committing a heinous crime, murdering women and children. According to the information received, approximately two thousand civilians were killed. We were able to shot down a helicopter that crashed off the coast. Now the military and militias are killing off the “rats” and foreign fighters on the outskirts of Tripoli.
The Libyan rebellion and supposed obtaining success of the NATO-backed terrorists, ah, rebels, are but Western show and media manipulation, says Russian and certain independent media entities. As quoted in the column of Filipino columnist Herman Tiu-Laurel, RT (Russian cable news) reports that the biased and/or largely false Western media reports are meant to sow panic among the Libyan people:
“Independent journalist says…‘The only gunfire that we are hearing is celebratory gunfire,’ she said. ‘And the only explosions that we are hearing are Nato air strikes or Natp sound bombs, which are clearly designed to create a sense of panic in… Tripoli.’ Phelan said that the Libyan rebels created fake footage of themselves in Zawiyah and Tripoli, and were aided in disseminating the footage by, among other media outlets, Al Jazeera. The Qatar-based satellite television station… has been at the center of the media conspiracy against Libya. The Western mainstream media, she continued, in turn picked up these reports and repeated them, creating a sense of panic among the Libyan people. Later… a number of armed gangs emerged… sleeper cells of rebels… (which) began firing randomly and threatening ordinary people… ‘They then took footage of the empty streets, which created the sense that they were in the process of capturing the city.’”
There have been too many things off, inaccurate, questionably and, simply, fishy in the Libya news of the supposedly big and reputable Western media entities. They reported that Khamis, one of Gadaffi's sons, has died--not once but twice; that Gadaffi was on the run only for the Libyan leader to later show himself on TV; that Tripoli was free only to back off and come up with some edits in the latest fresh "news." Pravda and some others reported something else--and also talked of independent reporters being threatened and even hurt/killed.
To illustrate how logically maddening Western media's coverage of Libya invasion, I mean, 'rebellion,' has been: as of a few days ago, when I checked on the world news, AP photos screamed of caption saying Tripoli has been taken by ther rebels and Libya 'liberated.' The afternoon of the same day, BBC's report was several degrees regressive--"Defiant Gadaffi vows to fight on." Gee, I thought the Libyan strongman's down and toppled?
Even before NATO's hopefully final airstrikes on Gadaffi's compound, I already anticipated something to that effect. I feared that NATO will engage in some massive bombing as a final phase in part to cover up the Pravda-reported lies with regards the rebels' general defeat in ground fighting. Wasn't I right?
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References:
Bancroft-Hinchey, Timothy. Bastards! Another NATO precision terrorist strike. 26 June 2011.
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/21-06-2011/118275-bastards_nato-0/
Battle of Tripoli: Separating Fantasy from Facts. Pravda. http://english.pravda.ru/world/africa/24-08-2011/118841-tripoli_truth-0/
Gaddafi: Africa’s biggest Blessing and the West’s biggest Threat – explained by Minister Farrakhan. http://eccleza.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/gadhafi-africas-biggest-blessing-and-the-wests-biggest-threat-explained-by-minister-farrakhan/
Kadhafi forces fight back as reward offered for strongman. The Daily Tribune. 08/26/2011. http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110826hed3.html
Libya: Country profile of human development indicators. http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/LBY.html
Libya: Flights of fiction and fantasy. Pravda. http://english.pravda.ru/world/africa/23-08-2011/118817-libya_truth-0/
NATO’S planned bloodbath in Tripoli. Pravda. http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/23-08-2011/118833-nato_bloodbath_tripoli-0/
NATOwood Libya production a total FLOP. Pravda. http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/23-08-2011/118838-NATOwood_Libya_production_a_total_FLOP-0/
Silke, Andrew. Terrorists, victims, and society: psychological perspectives on terrorism and its consequences. John Wiley and Sons, 2003
Tiu-Laurel, Herman. “Of ‘ratings’ and ‘news’ agencies.” The Daily Tribune. 22 August. 2011. http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110822com5.html
Sison, Joma. PUBLIC DEBT CRISIS WORSENS GLOBAL DEPRESSION AND FURTHER INFLAMES PEOPLES’ RESISTANCE. http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=8575#more-8575
UNHRC. Report of the Working Group of the Universal Periodic Review: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. 4 January 2011. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16session/A-HRC-16-15.pdf
Varner, Bill. Libyan Rebel Council Forms Oil Company to Replace Qaddafi’s. 22 March 2011. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-21/libyan-rebel-council-sets-up-oil-company-to-replace-qaddafi-s.html
Wow That Was Fast! Libyan Rebels Have Already Established A New Central Bank Of Libya. http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/wow-that-was-fast-libyan-rebels-have-already-established-a-new-central-bank-of-libya
