We are cutting £50 off OAPS winter fuel aid- apart from all the other cuts- inspight of this- Hague still sends OUR MONEY abroad be it India or Pakistan this isn’t fair- make their own wealthy pay bloody TAXES!!
Video, Arab Uprisings: William Hague Says World Must Give Financial Backing To Democracy Movements | Sky News http://t.co/8046XmE Eurabia?
Democracy my backside- ours is broken into pieces- Fix ours first!¬!
http://twitter.com/#!/victorshannock/statuses/66046825160916993
HAGUE AND CO ARE A DANGEROUS BUNCH- LAWFUL REBELLION TIME IS HERE- HOLD ONTO OUR MONEY- IT’S OURS NOT THEIRS!
Other reports have pointed to the role of Saudi Arabia in financing the protest movement.
What has unfolded in Daraa in the weeks following the initial violent clashes on 17-18 March, is the confrontation between the police and the armed forces on the one hand and armed units of terrorists and snipers on the other which have infiltrated the protest movement.
Reports suggest that these terrorists are integrated by Islamists. There is no concrete evidence as to which Islamic organizations are behind the terrorists and the government has not released corroborating information as to who these groups are.
Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (whose leadership is in exile in the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), among others have paid lip service to the protest movement. Hizb ut Tahir (led in the 1980s by Syrian born Omar Bakri Muhammad) tends to “dominate the British Islamist scene” according to Foreign Affairs. Hizb ut Tahir is also considered to be of strategic importance to Britain’s Secret Service MI6. in the pursuit of Anglo-American interests in the Middle East and Central Asia. (Is Hizb-ut-Tahrir another project of British MI6? | State of Pakistan).
Hizb ut-Tahrir anti-Assad rally in Tripoli, Lebanon (40 km from Syrian border), April 22, 2011.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in SyriaSyria is a secular Arab country, a society of religious tolerance, where Muslims and Christians have for several centuries lived in peace. Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is a radical political movement committed to the creation of an Islamic caliphate. In Syria, its avowed objective is to destabilize the secular state.
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, Western intelligence agencies as well as Israel’s Mossad have consistently used various Islamic terrorist organizations as “intelligence assets”. Both Washington and its indefectible British ally have provided covert support to “Islamic terrorists” in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya, etc. as a means to triggering ethnic strife, sectarian violence and political instability.
The staged protest movement in Syria is modelled on Libya. The insurrection in Eastern Libya is integrated by the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which is supported by MI6 and the CIA. The ultimate objective of the Syria protest movement, through media lies and fabrications, is to create divisions within Syrian society as well as justify an eventual “humanitarian intervention”.
Armed Insurrection in Syria
An armed insurrection integrated by Islamists and supported covertly by Western intelligence is central to an understanding of what is occurring on the ground.
The existence of an armed insurrection is not mentioned by the Western media. If it were to be acknowledged and analysed, our understanding of unfolding events would be entirely different.
What is mentioned profusely is that the armed forces and the police are involved in the indiscriminate killing of protesters.
The deployment of the armed forces including tanks in Daraa is directed against an organized armed insurrection, which has been active in the border city since March 17-18.
Casualties are being reported which also include the death of policemen and soldiers.
In a bitter irony, the Western media acknowledges the police/soldier deaths while denying the existence of an armed insurrection.
The key question is how does the media explain these deaths of soldiers and police?
Without evidence, the reports suggest authoritatively that the police is shooting at the soldiers and vice versa the soldiers are shooting on the police. In a April 29 Al Jazeera report, Daraa is described as “a city under siege”.
“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out. Inside the city, shops are shuttered and nobody dare walk the once bustling market streets, today transformed into the kill zone of rooftop snipers.
Unable to crush the people who first dared rise up against him – neither with the secret police, paid thugs or the special forces of his brother’s military division – President Bashar al-Assad has sent thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Deraa for an operation the regime wants nobody in the world to see.
Though almost all communication channels with Deraa have been cut, including the Jordanian mobile service that reaches into the city from just across the border, Al Jazeera has gathered firsthand accounts of life inside the city from residents who just left or from eyewitnesses inside who were able to get outside the blackout area.
The picture that emerges is of a dark and deadly security arena, one driven by the actions of the secret police and their rooftop snipers, in which soldiers and protestors alike are being killed or wounded, in which cracks are emerging in the military itself, and in which is created the very chaos which the regime uses to justify its escalating crackdown. (Daraa, a City under Siege, IPS / Al Jazeera, April 29, 2011)
The Al Jazeera report borders on the absurd. Read carefully.
“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out”, “thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Daraa”
This situation has prevailed for several weeks. This means that bona fide protesters who are not already inside Daraa cannot enter Daraa.
People who live in the city are in their homes: “nobody dares walk … the streets”. If nobody dares walk the streets where are the protesters?
Who is in the streets? According to Al Jazeera, the protesters are in the streets together with the soldiers, and both the protesters and the soldiers are being shot at by “plain clothes secret police”, by “paid thugs” and government sponsored snipers.
The impression conveyed in the report is that these casualties are attributed to infighting between the police and the military.
But the report also says that the soldiers (in the “thousands”) control all roads in and out of the city, but they are being shot upon by the plain clothed secret police.
The purpose of this web of media deceit, namely outright fabrications –where soldiers are being killed by police and “government snipers”– is to deny the existence of armed terrorist groups. The later are integrated by snipers and “plain clothed terrorists” who are shooting at the police, the Syrian armed forces and local residents.
These are not spontaneous acts of terror; they are carefully planned and coordinated attacks. In recent developments, according to a Xinhua report (April 30, 2011), armed “terrorist groups” “attacked the housing areas for servicemen” in Daraa province, “killing a sergeant and wounding two”.
While the government bears heavy responsibility for its mishandling of the military-police operation, including the deaths of civilians, the reports confirm that the armed terrorist groups had also opened fire on protesters and local residents. The casualties are then blamed on the armed forces and the police and the Bashar Al Assad government is portrayed by “the international community” as having ordered countless atrocities.
The fact of the matter is that foreign journalists are banned from reporting inside Syria, to the extent that much of the information including the number of casualties is obtained from the unverified accounts of “witnesses”.
It is in the interest of the US-NATO alliance to portray the events in Syria as a peaceful protest movement which is being brutally repressed by a “dictatorial regime”.
The Syrian government may be autocratic. It is certainly not a model of democracy but neither is the US administration, which is characterized by rampant corruption, the derogation of civil liberties under the Patriot legislation, the legalisation of torture, not to mention its “bloodless” “humanitarian wars”:
“The U.S. and its NATO allies have, in addition to U.S. Sixth Fleet and NATO Active Endeavor military assets permanently deployed in the Mediterranean, warplanes, warships and submarines engaged in the assault against Libya that can be used against Syria at a moment’s notice.
On April 27 Russia and China evidently prevented the U.S. and its NATO allies from pushing through an equivalent of Resolution 1973 against Syria in the Security Council, with Russian deputy ambassador to the UN Alexander Pankin stating that the current situation in Syria “does not present a threat to international peace and security.” Syria is Russia’s last true partner in the Mediterranean and the Arab world and hosts one of only two Russian overseas naval bases, that at Tartus. (The other being in Ukraine’s Crimea.)” (Rick Rozoff, Libyan Scenario For Syria: Towards A US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention” directed against Syria? Global Research, April 30, 2011)
The ultimate purpose is to trigger sectarian violence and political chaos within Syria by covertly supporting Islamic terrorist organizations.
What lies ahead?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24591
KILLING SPREES IN OUR NAME!
Congress and the Pentagon should be investigating this incident. But, because the media is lost in the Rapture of the “Osama Is Dead” newscycle, this is unlikely to happen.
NATO Has Become a Terrorist Organization
On May 1, 2011, NATO bombs fell on Libyan leader Muammar el-Gaddafi’s Tripoli headquarters. A Libyan government spokesman denounced the attack as a failed assassination attempt and the charge was echoed by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who accused the West of plotting to “execute” Gaddafi. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates denied the charge, saying the US considered Gaddafi’s offices “legitimate targets.” Gates told the media. “We are not targeting [Gaddafi] specifically, but we do consider command-and-control targets to be legitimate targets wherever we find them.”
Up to that point, the only “legitimate” targets of the NATO-led air campaign had been Libyan government air defenses, supply depots and ground forces. This “mission creep” about what constituted “command-and-control” assets might explain NATO’s air strike on the Tripoli headquarters of Libyan TV. The assault temporarily knocked the country’s main TV station off the air but how this helped promote NATO’s mission of “protecting the civilian population” was not made clear.
Three days later, NATO upped the ante by dropping bombs on the home of one of Gaddafi’s sons, killing 29-year-old Saif al-Arab Gaddafi and three of his children. The Libyan leader, who was in the building on a family visit with this wife, was considered the actual target of the attack. It was difficult to see how the building, a one-story villa in a residential section of Tripoli, could have qualified as a “command-and-control” center.
Washington’s Assassination Rap-Sheet
One of the reasons the US is a target of hatred in many countries is that Washington has racked up a long history of political assassinations around the world. What seems to have changed, with the attacks in Tripoli and Abbottabad is that the US is now conducting these formerly covet operations in public.
On December 22, 1974, Seymour Hersh became the first mainstream journalist to pry open the vault that hid America’s history of assassinations. Hersh’s exposé in The New York Times described the government’s “family jewels” — a trove of secret assassination operations conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency over several decades. Some of the more notable victims included Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers of Vietnam and General Rene Schneider of Chile. Under President John F. Kennedy, the CIA made numerous attempts on the life of Cuba’s Fidel Castro — even working with the Mafia at one point.
In 1976, following the revelations of the Senate’s Church Committee hearings, President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905, which was designed to put an end to US-sanctioned assassinations of foreign leaders. In 1981, President Reagan replaced Ford’s ban with his own Executive Order 12333, which began to move the bar on what was banned.
In 1986, Reagan ordered air strikes on Gaddafi’s tent-home in Libya. This assault — which could honestly be described as a terrorist attack — missed Gaddafi but US bombs did succeed in killing Gaddafi’s adopted daughter and, according to some reports, 40 other children.
Shifting Definitions of ‘Permissible Assassination’
Two years after Reagan’s attack, George H.W. Bush “reinterpreted” the law banning politicide in order to target Panamanian leader (and former CIA asset) Manuel Noriega. The new understanding was that the assassination prohibition did not apply if a foreign leader were killed as an “unintended consequence” of US military action.
When it became the younger Bush’s turn to control the weapons of the assassin’s trade, the rationale for taking out a fellow foreign leader shifted once again. George W.’s team of White House lawyers conveniently concluded that America’s decision to directly target Saddam Hussein for death was “legal” — despite the long-standing rules of the Geneva Convention and the existing presidential ban on assassinating foreign leaders. Bush’s lawyers chose to rely on an interpretation of international human rights law that permits the targeting of “military commanders” in a “time of war.”
Under this ruling, if President Saddam Hussein were to surrender in return for an end to military action, it would then be illegal to kill him. This could explain why the Bush White House refused to negotiate with Saddam and why the Obama White House has ignored Gaddafi’s repeated offers of a cease-fire and a negotiated end to the conflict.
Blowback from the New Assassination Protocol
When President Gerald Ford declared his ban on further assassinations of heads of state, he did so largely out of fear that any continuation of US assassination plans might trigger retaliatory attacks directed at an American president. It was a reasonable fear.
But now, NATO’s wanton breach of international law has blown that locked door wide open. Under the Geneva Convention, armies are supposed to make every effort to minimize civilian casualties when in pursuit of military victory. But NATO’s attempts to kill Gaddafi by attacking buildings occupied by scores of employees and innocent bystanders — and destroying the homes and lives of his children — has set a dangerous new standard.
Thanks to NATO’s Libyan air strikes, the current US president — and other leaders of the NATO coalition — must now consider themselves legitimate targets for similar, retaliatory attacks. The bombing the Libyan leader’s official residence was the equivalent of attacking the White House.
An equal application of the “Saddam Hussein Exemption” means that Barack Obama now has become a legitimate target for foreign military assassins. Following NATO’s lead, Libyan forces (or sympathetic foreign intelligence agents or freelance terrorists) now can claim justification for killing members of Obama’s family — including, God forbide, Michelle, Sasha and Malia.
Applying America’s shifting definition of what constitutes a “justifiable assassination” also means that 10 Downing Street — the residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron, his wife, Samantha and their three children — also becomes a legitimate target. Similarly, the Elysee Palace — the command center for French President Nicholas Sarkozy as well as the official residence he shares with his wife Carla Bruni — now stands as a legitimate target for retaliation — by Libyan government forces, their proxies, or sympathetic agents.
This leaves raises a portentous judicial challenge: Is it possible to hold NATO and its leaders accountable, under the auspices of the International Criminal Court, for the commission of war crimes and the violation of international law?
The Secret US/UK/French Plot Targeting Libya
Another story that risks behind left behind in the dust of history involves a little-known military exercise called Southern Mistral. This “war game” mobilized strategists and troops from France, Britain and the US for a joint assault on an unnamed country labeled “Southland.” The outline of the attack plan suggests that the NATO attack on Libya was initially mapped out on November 2 — more than four months before the launch of Operation Odyssey Dawn — and was not a response to Libya’s brutal suppression of a spontaneous civilian uprising.
After reviewing the planning documents on a French military Website, Michel Chossudovsky, director of Canadian media organizaton, Global Research, concluded: “The war on Libya, as well as the armed insurrection, were planned months prior to the Arab protest movement.”
“Military operations of this size and magnitude are never improvised,” Chossudovsky wrote on April 23, 2011. “The war on Libya as well as the armed insurrection were planned months prior to the Arab protest movement. We were led to believe that the protest movement in Egypt and Tunisia had spread to Libya. The insurrection in Libya was presented as a spontaneous response to a wave of pro-democracy activism which had swept the Arab World. In turn, we were led to believe that ‘the international community’ decided in response to these unfolding events, to ‘protect the lives of civilians’ and refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council. The media then reported that it was only once the UN Security Council had adopted Resolution 1973, that the US and NATO member countries took the decision to intervene militarily in Libya under the ‘No-Fly Zone.’”
In fact, UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (authorizing military action against Libya’s government) was already “on the drawing board,” months before there was any evidence of a “pro-democracy” uprising in eastern Libya.
According to the officialSouthern Mistral 2011 War Games Scenario, a “Franco-British (humanitarian) air operation against SOUTHLAND was to be carried out pursuant to … UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION NO: 3003.” The war games were scheduled to start on March 21, 2011. But the war games never took place because the assembled military forces “went live” with the actual attack on Libya on March 19 — two days prior to the scheduled date in the “imaginary” war game.
The Southern Mistral planning documents outlined the following scenario:
FRANCE:Makes the decision to show its determination to SOUTHLAND (under United Nations Security council resolution no. 3003).
UNITED-KINGDOM:Allied country as determined in the bilateral agreement. The United Kingdom supports France through the deployment of its air assets.
Six Royal Air Force Tornado GR4s, one tanker Vickers VC-10 and one Boeing E3D will be deployed together with French Air force Mirage 2000Ds, 2000Ns and 2000Cs operating with a fleet of around thirty aircraft including helicopters, Boeing tankers and AWACs radar aircraft…. An Air Operations Cell deployed at Nancy air base (BA 133) will follow in real time all the air missions and reproduce the air raids. (www.southern-mistral.cdaoa.fr/GB/)
Under the war games scenario, Security Council Resolution 3003 was proposed by France, whereas “the real life” UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was proposed by France, the UK and Lebanon.
Operation Southern Mistral has also drawn the attention of Congressmember Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). “While war games are not uncommon,” Kucinich has written, “the similarities between ‘Southern Mistral’ and ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’ highlight just how many unanswered questions remain regarding our own military planning for Libya. We don’t know how long the attack on Libya has been in preparation, but Congress must find out.”
On March 29, 2011, Kucinich circulated a Dear Colleague letter related to an amendment calling for a congressional cut-off of funds for the war in Libya. “I want to call to your attention to the stark lack of information provided to Congress and the American people about the war,” Kucinich wrote. ”Last night the President said it took one month to put together a response to the situation in Libya. During that time, the President consulted with 28 member nations of NATO, 22 member nations of the Arab League and 15 members of the UN Security Council, ten of whom approved the resolution. There was also time for extensive coordination with France and Great Britain. The President had time to consult with the international community, but had no time to come to the United States Congress?
“There is no question that the Administration should have followed the Constitution and received the approval of Congress before starting a war. Consulting with a few members is not the same thing as following the Constitutional requirements of Article 1, Section 8. Further complicating the Administration’s failure to come to Congress prior to ordering an attack is the fact that our primary partners in the war against Libya — France and Great Britain — had, according to a French military website, planned certain war games which now may have significance.
“On November 2, 2010 France and Great Britain signed a mutual defense treaty, which paved the way for joint participation in a military exercise called ‘Southern Mistral’. The ‘Southern Mistral’ war games called for Great Britain-French air strikes against an unnamed dictator of a fictional country, Southland…. On March 19, 2011, the United States joined France and Great Britain in an air attack against Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1973. Scheduling a joint military exercise that ends up resembling real military action could be seen as remarkable planning by the French and British, but it also highlights questions regarding the United States’ role in planning for the war….
“We don’t know who the rebels really represent and how they became armed, but Congress must find out. With so many unknowns, Congress’ only path to protect both the Constitution and the institution of government of the people is to cut off funds for the war in Libya. A cutoff of funds would require the President to follow the Constitutional process with respect to going to war…. Otherwise, we will have given our tacit consent to a policy that undercuts Congress’ constitutionally-mandated role as a coequal branch of government. Moreover, since the Founders established Congress under Article 1 and the Executive under Article 2, Congress is first among equals, unless we refuse to be.”
So the question returns to the definition of “who we are as a people.”
Are we citizens of a country that acts under Constitutional law or are we a nation that glories in our ability to invade any country that our leaders choose and gathers to cheer as our leaders send armadas to cross sovereign territories half-a-world away to openly murder foreign leaders we have targeted for death?
Are we a nation that celebrates the Pentagon’s ability to steer drone aircraft from the safety of control rooms in Nevada that rain Hellfire missiles on village homes in Pakistan? Do we cheer the NATO bombs that target despots and wind up killing their sons, brothers and grandchildren? Do we wave our flag in the face of the world and call it “victory” when we shoot our unarmed enemies in cold-blood, gun down their women and kill their sons?
Gar Smith is the co-founder of Environmentalists Against War and the winner of multiple Project Censored Awards. This article represents the author’s opinions and does not necessarily reflect the positions of members of the EAW board.
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Libya: Terrorists Are Us?
by Felicity Arbuthnot
“And you all also may remember that early on, I said if you hide a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, if you provide comfort to a terrorist, you’re just as guilty as the terrorist. ” George W. Bush. (Address to US., troops, Alaska, 16th February 2002.)
Given the ferocity of the attack on Libya, the country Tony Blair credited himself with bringing in from the cold and turning in to a new trading partner, Colonel Qadhafi, has been remarkably conciliatory. On 5th., April he wrote to President Obama, more in sorrow than in anger.(i)
The irony of a half African, Nobel Peace Prize winner, initiating bombing in Africa, instead of using his roots to nurture shoots of understanding and co-operation, is a fairly mind stretching irony. But why spoil an unbroken track record and become the only US., President in modern history not to attack a few countries who pose the United States no threat whatsoever.
On April 30th., Libya’s leader proposed a negotiated cease fire with the rebels, as long as NATO; “stop its ‘planes.” NATO and the insurgents, rejected the offer saying it: “lacked credibility.” Don’t bother to: “Give peace a chance.”
America, Woodrow Wilson’s: ” … only idealistic nation in the world.”, responded by participating in a missile attack which killed the Colonel’s second youngest son, Saif Al Arab, and three grandchildren under twelve.
Nato launched the air strike hours after the Libyan leader renewed calls for a ceasefire and negotiations, in an 80-minute televised address. “The door to peace is open,” he declared, adding that while the Libyan government would welcome a ceasefire “it cannot be achieved unilaterally.” “Come, France, Italy, Britain, America, come to negotiate with us – why are you attacking us?”
But it is April, the seemingly open season on the Qadhafi family, month. On April 15th., 1986 his adopted toddler daughter Hanna was killed in a US., bombing; his son Khamis reportedly died of wounds from another bombing, just four days before March this year, became April.
On 11th., April, Delegates from the African Union, also failed to broker a truce, rejected by the former Justice Minister, turned “rebel leader”, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who had gone on behalf of the government to Benghazi to broker a peace deal – and switched sides. Quaddaffi himself had accepted the plan. In recently released Wikileak-ed US., diplomatic cables, Jalil is described as “open and cooperative.”(ii) Wonder what deal might have been struck.
NATO’s Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard said he is aware of unconfirmed reports that some Qadhafi family members may have been killed: “All NATO’s targets are military in nature … We do not target individuals”, he said. In broken record mode, he “regrets”: “all loss of life, especially the innocent civilians being harmed as a result of the ongoing conflict.” Interestingly all three attacks appear to have been on the same residential area, where the media yesterday found a decimated one story residential house, the television still on, food in the kitchen, fruit on the table and a football game machine in the garden.
NATO have, in time honored fashion, intimated that the home was a military compound. They said the same of the Ameriyah Shelter in Baghdad in 1991, where the still unknown number incinerated inside, upwards of 400, were woman and children. It had, of course, never been a military compound. They intimated the same of the media centre in Belgrade in 1999 – and, with a different slant, of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel in 2003, where US., troops killed two journalists and wounded three. On that day (April 8th.,) two more buildings housing journalists were attacked, killing a third correspondent.
In 2008, Sgt. Adrienne Kinne, a former Arabic linguist in U.S., Army Intelligence, revealed that she had seen secret documents listing the Palestine Hotel as a possible military target, prior to the 2003 shelling incident. Reports from Kinne suggest that the attack on the hotel was a deliberate attempt to control news coverage of the U.S., invasion of Iraq, as the Palestine Hotel was a popular place for international journalists. The list of such attacks, globally, over decades, with accompanying collateral lies, is a woeful reflection on military integrity. (News, websites, Wikipedia.)
Yesterday’s attack, said a Libyan government spokesman, was: “An assassination attempt.” Hard to argue, since Britain’s Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said the Libyan Leader is: “a legitimate target”, and Prime Minister Cameron insists that he “must go.” (iii)
Dennis Kucinich (D-Oh.) is aghast: “NATO’s leaders have blood on their hands. NATO’s airstrike seems to have been intended to carry out an illegal policy of assassination. This is a deep stain which can never fully wash. This grave matter cannot be addressed with empty words. Words will not bring back dead children. Actions must be taken to stop more innocents from getting slaughtered. Today’s attack underscores that the Obama Doctrine of so-called humanitarian intervention appears to be a cover for regime change through assassination and murder.” (iv)
But US., driven attacks have “form” in serial assassinations. In July 2003, Saddam Hussein’s sons, Qusay and Uday and his fifteen year old grandson, were shredded to pieces by US., troops machine gun fire, in a house in the ancient northern Iraqi city of Mosul. No arrests, no trial, simply assassinated, by illegal invaders. Arbitrary executions, unquestioned and unaccountable.
“Historically, America has not sought to impose its will on other countries. The service of our armed forces throughout the world has been uniquely important to the happiness of people everywhere …” stated President Obama in his Nobel Prize Award address. Tell that to the bereaved, bereft, broken, bleeding, bombed, orphaned, displaced. Breathtaking.
In Benghazi and elsewhere in Eastern Libya, the US., and allies are openly advising, backing, funding and arming rebels and insurgents, who have risen up against their own, sovereign government. “Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a (sic) horrific scale”, expanded the President at the Nobel ceremony. Right on, Sir.
Incredibly the US., has already done an oil deal with the rebels. Another day, another ram raid. Also another mirror image of Iraq, who switched out of oil trading in US., dollars in November 2000.
Further, regarding Libya: “The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the months running up to the UN., resolution that allowed the US., and its allies to send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qadhafi was openly advocating the creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US., and the rest of the world only for gold dinars.
The US., the other G-8 countries, the World Bank … and multinational corporations do not look kindly on leaders who threaten their dominance over world currency markets or who appear to be moving away from the international banking system that favors the corporatocracy. ” (v)
Amid the politics and the horror of knowing that countries dressed as bastions of legality and democracy now have a policy of assassination, Saturday 30th., brought another tragedy. Also bombed by the “humanitarian interveners”, was a parent-funded school for children with Down’s Syndrome. Ismail Seddigh founded the school seventeen years ago, after his daughter was born with Down’s. Through therapy, crafts, music and inventive teaching methods, they aim to have the children able to cope with a main stream school by the age of six. “I feel really sad. I kept thinking, what are we going to do with these children?” Asks Mr. Seddigh. The strike happened before the children arrived, mercifully. The orphanage on the floors above was also bombed.
“If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocence, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril”, said George W. Bush, as he took that path to Afghanistan.
Shortly after 9/11, General Wesley Clark was, as has been recently re-remembered, told by a Pentagon colleague that the decision had been made to “take out” seven countries in five years. The countries were: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. A little behind schedule, but short of a miracle, the path of greed and inhumanity is hewn.(vi)
Meanwhile, Britain’s little geographically, diplomatically and follicly challenged Foreign Secretary, William Hague has apparently lost the plot. Foreign missions in Libya’s capital have been targeted by crowds angry at a Nato air strike killing Colonel Quaddaffi’s son and grandchildren.. A UK., embassy building had been completely burnt out. Italian, French, US., embassies and the United Nations building – symbol of Security Council Resolution 1973 authorising the plight they find themselves in – were also attacked.
Mr Hague rails that the Quaddaffi regime has: “failed in its duty” to protect it and that Omar Jelban, Libya’s Representative in the UK., had been given 24 hours to leave the country. Hague said: “The Vienna Convention requires the Quaddaffi regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli. By failing to do so, that regime has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations. I take the failure to protect such premises very seriously indeed.” Truly jaw dropping.
Between 31 st., March and 24th., April, alone, there were 3,438 sorties over Libya and 1,432 strikes against little over six million people (vii) on a country that poses no threat to any NATO country, and has threatened no other. Fig leaf UNSCR 1973, does not make the decimation or assassinations legal. The Colonel has lost five of his family. Yet he and his government is demanded to prioritise protection of the British Embassy – while Britain is contributing substantially to the bombing – perhaps Libyans should also clutch a copy of the Vienna Convention for reading whilst on UK Embassy guard duty.
Since law experts across the globe are queuing up to see George Bush, Tony Blair, and their former Administrations on war crimes trials, and now Barack Obama, David Cameron, Liam Fox, William Hague and their colleagues would seem to be on equally dodgy ground, now in three countries, perhaps a little reading of international law closer to home might be in order.
“We stand at the threshold. It is time for you and me to move out of the dark void of brutal exploitation and greed into the light of compassion and cooperation”, wrote John Perkins, author of “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” recently.
Nearly two and a half thousand years ago, Thucydides (460 BC – 395 BC) wrote: “When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.” When will power learn?
Yesterday, 1st., May, the day of the Libyan assassinations, is the eighth anniversary of George W. Bush landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln in his little flying suit and announcing: “Mission accomplished.” Well, that’s all gone well, then.
Notes
i. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24282
iii. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article1559179.ece
iv. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=238799
v. http://www.johnperkins.org/?p=1051
vi. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5166
vii. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24477
Read about Osama Bin Laden in Michel Chossudovsky’s international best-seller
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Felicity Arbuthnot is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Felicity Arbuthnot
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