U.S. Spreads More 'Democracy'... Bush bombed Iraq 19 March 2003... Obama Bombed Libya 19 March 2011

U.S. forces joined those of four other countries in launching military action against Libya on Saturday, and President Barack Obama said U.S. involvement was limited and only in support of an international effort.

Enlarged Photo

The United States, France, Britain, Canada and Italy began launching strikes designed to cripple Muammar Gaddafi's air defenses, as the West tries to force the Libyan leader from power. At least some Arab nations are expected to join the coalition later.

Announcing that the strikes had begun, Obama said the effort was intended to protect the Libyan people.

"Today I authorized the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians. That action has now begun," Obama told reporters in Brasilia, where he has just begun a five-day tour of Latin American.

He said U.S. troops were acting in support of allies, who will lead the enforcement of a no-fly zone. French warplanes began operations over Libya earlier Saturday to stop Gaddafi's attacks on rebels.

"As I said yesterday, we will not, I repeat, we will not deploy any U.S. troops on the ground," Obama said, grim-faced as he delivered the news of U.S. military action in a third Muslim country.

Missiles were launched from a warship against targets in the oil-producing North African country.

U.S. forces and planes will take part in the operation, called "Odyssey Dawn," which will mainly target air defenses around the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Misrata.

Some 25 coalition ships, including three U.S. submarines armed with Tomahawk missiles, and are stationed in the Mediterranean, a military slide showed. Five U.S. surveillance planes are also in the area, it showed.

The United States is already enmeshed in long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and there is little appetite in Congress and among the public for another expensive military intervention. U.S. officials have said repeatedly that it is time for Gaddafi to leave, but lately have stressed that the goal of military action in Libya was different.

"It is to protect civilians and it is to provide access for humanitarian assistance," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Paris, where she attended a conference called by French President Sarkozy to discuss the international response to the Libya crisis.

The first shot in a U.N.-mandated intervention in Libya was fired by a French aircraft and destroyed a military vehicle at around 1645 GMT, French defence ministry and army officials said on Saturday.

"A first target was engaged and destroyed," ministry spokesman Laurent Teisseire told reporters.

An armed forces spokesman told the same briefing that the operation to halt Muammar Gaddafi’s advance on rebel forces involved around 20 planes and an area 100 km by 150 km (60 by 100 miles) around the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

France’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier will leave France for Libya on Sunday, the spokesman added. A central command centre for the operation was still being set up.

March 19, 2011 - posted at RougeGovernment

Submitted by SadInAmerica on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 9:33pm.

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A DARK DAY FOR DEMOCRACY – A DARK DAY FOR NORFOLK

The decision to award a £670 million PFI contract for Norfolk’s waste incinerator has been made, reports TPA supporter John Martin somewhat glumly.

Monday 7th March dawned bright, and the sun shone down on an impressive but peaceful protest outside County Hall against the proposal to build Norfolk’s first waste incinerator. But storm clouds were looming. As I rolled up to do my brief interview with BBC Radio Norfolk, I had no idea what was in store.

The Norfolk County Council (“NCC”) Cabinet meeting began with a record number of public questions about the incinerator, many of which attracted flimsy answers. (This tends to be the norm.) Then, the proposal that NCC should enter into a PFI contract costing £670 million over twenty-five years with Anglo/US consortium Cory Wheelabrator (“CW”) was considered. The proceedings began with Cllr Nick Daubeny, the leader of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council (“KLWNBC”), addressing the Cabinet. He was there by invitation to present the result of the referendum held by KLWNBC.

(Regular readers will recall that the referendum attracted a 61% response, larger than the turnout in many a general election.  The vote against the incinerator was 65,516 or over 92% of those who responded. The vote for was a mere 5,173. The vote against totalled more than Henry Bellingham and Elizabeth Truss, the local MPs who have both spoken out forcefully against the incinerator, together polled in the last general election.)

Cllr Daubeny made a simple but impassioned plea for the NCC Cabinet to drop the proposal altogether. He argued that the sheer scale of the referendum vote was proof that politicians should listen to the voters. In democracies, he said, you have to take your mandate from the people, and they had made it clear that the NCC Cabinet did not have one in this case. He urged that, as a minimum, the decision should be put on hold and then passed to the full NCC Council to make with a recorded vote being taken. This all fell, dear readers, on totally deaf ears.

The debate then ensued. Well, it was less a debate, more a drive-by shooting. The NCC Leader, Cllr Derrick Murphy, from his position as chairman orchestrated an all-out assault on the objectors, Henry Bellingham MP and KLWNBC. In the role of a grand inquisitor, or a newly appointed chairman of a House of Commons Select Committee, he spoon-fed obviously well-rehearsed questions to the panel of officers present encouraging them to trash the objectors’ arguments. He chose himself to attack Henry Bellingham MP aggressively, and left his colleagues to challenge the way in which KLWNBC had conducted the referendum. Someone sitting close to me ventured the suggestion that the whole spectacle was being stage-managed. I was already thinking that I had seen performances of an equal quality when attending local amateur dramatic productions in our village hall. As a member of NCC commented to the press later, “He was acting like a man possessed”.

There was never any doubt as to the outcome. The NCC Cabinet voted unanimously for the proposal, with one member – Cllr David Harwood – abstaining. Cllr Harwood had been an advocate for the incinerator. However, as a member of KLWNBC himself, he is facing re-election in May and the referendum result may have brought about a damascene conversion on his part.

(Ironically, of course, all the parties on the stage – save possibly some of the objectors, for whom politics seems academic – are Tories. So also is David Cameron, whose “localism agenda” took quite a hit by the refusal of the NCC Cabinet to listen to 65,615 voters.)

The likelihood, of course, is that the decision to go ahead was taken the previous Friday when the sixty-strong Tory group on NCC met in the same room in which the NCC Cabinet meeting took place. (I suppose that the choice of venue at least gives it a modicum of added authority.) This would explain the spectacle of the NCC Cabinet meeting, the like of which I have never witnessed before.

It was Henry Bellingham MP who described this as “A dark day for democracy – a dark day for Norfolk”. And he is correct. At worst, the residents of Norfolk are faced with a PFI contract that will no doubt prove to be eye-wateringly painful in time. At best, they will face a huge compensation bill from CW if the project fails to get through the planning and environmental permit application stages. This leaves out of the equation the potential risk to health and the environment, if the incinerator is built. All that is certain for now is that there will be fewer Tory twin-hatters around after the May elections.

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No Judge, No Jury The curious case of the terror suspect plumber- Democracy Dead!!

To be honest I met Ian about a month ago or so at the talk I gave in High Wycombe. I met Ian for the first time outside the talk, whilst we waited for the hall to open. Ian started to tell his story to me, but had limited time to do so. We chatted some more during the talk and after, but even then I did not know the full extent of what had happened to him and why.

One morning last week, Ian came up to see me and we spent many hours together and during this time I had chance to listen too exactly what had gone on from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. To be honest you just could not make something like this up. Ian runs a plumbing company called leak busters and to me he seems to be an honest, hard working, moralistic man with a very big heart. I realised after a very short time that it was going to be a pleasure to know him

Ian’s story, to a lot of you I am sure, will not be a shock. But on the same hand, to many who do not realise what the entity called the police really are and the abuses they get away with daily, then the content of this story will be a shock. I know Ian will back me when I say that not all the police are like this and I know he would say that there are very honest and moralistic men and women who work within this entity – this by no means tars them all with the same brush. It has been said many times that the police themselves are at this time out of control. After reading Ian’s story, I am sure you will agree that his case highlights this fact to a point where it now, cannot be denied. I am not going to waffle on anymore and I shall leave you to decide for yourselves. Please click on the image above, below or the links to read this most fascinating story.

IanPuddick.co.uk

IanPuddick.com

If you would like to support Ian on the day of the trial, then please see below.

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