Bill Van Auken: Washington Seeks NATO Cover for War Against Libya!

The Obama administration is formally shifting its war in Libya to NATO command, as the US dominated alliance predicts that the fighting will go on for at least another three months. The agreement to place the US led war under NATO cover emerged piecemeal amid acrimonious discussions between Washington and its NATO allies, each of which are pursuing their own strategic interests in waging an imperialist war against a former colonial country. After a 24-hour period ending Friday morning, in which US warships fired another 16 Tomahawk missiles at Libyan targets, and "coalition" warplanes, the majority of them American, flew another 153 sorties, NATO officials in Brussels revealed that planning for the Libyan intervention assumed that it would last another three months, with the option of extending this period as required. The head of the French armed forces also cautioned against any expectation of a quick end to the attacks. "I doubt that it will be days," Admiral Edouard Guillaud told French Info radio. "I think it will be weeks. I hope it will not take months." Libya, meanwhile, has reported that the civilian death toll from US-NATO bombing and missile strikes has risen to around 100. In Tripoli, hospital workers and government officials said that the latest attacks on the Libyan capital had killed a number of civilians, including women. The Al-Arabiya television network cited an unnamed source Friday as confirming that among the casualties from the air strikes was Gaddafi's son Khamis, said to have been killed in a raid on the Bab al-Aziza compound in Tripoli. In other words, as those of us who have been in a war, or served in one, in the hope of reducing our nation's casualties realize: War is Hell!!

Though Libyan Rebels Claim To Have Reached Ajdabiya, Misurata remains with Gaddafi Forces!

Libyan rebels are advancing west, after capturing recapturing the strategic eastern town of Ajdabiya from government controls with the help of "coalition" air strikes. Reports late on Saturday suggested rebels had already pressed onto the key oil-port town of Brega, 80 kilometers to the west. "We are in the center of Brega," Abdelsalam al-Maadani, a rebel fighter, told the AFP news agency by telephone. But Reuters said rebels rebels were only on the outskirts of Brega. Al Jazeera's James Bays, who reached Ajdabija on Saturday, said that while it "appeared" that rebels had taken over the town of Brega, it remained unclear who controlled the nearby oil port. Else- where, pro-Gaddafi forces attacked the opposition-held city of Misurata in the west of the country. Heavy shelling there, witnesses said, drew coalition air strikes against government military targets. The port city has experienced some of the heaviest fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi since the uprising began on February 16. "There is muted optimism. It really does not feel that the momentum of the Gaddafi forces has been stopped," our correspondent said. "They are not outwardly celebrating but they are definitely optimistic."
As they said while I served as Advisory Team Leader in Vietnam: "Hope springs eternal", yet we DID LOSE THAT F'n WAR. You figure it out!

Peter Dale Scott: Who are the Libyan "Freedom Fighters?"

America, already mired in two decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the provider of sporadic air attacks in Yemen and Somalia, is now bombing Libya. Although our "president" claims this was done to reduce "civilian casualties", our "president" is merely gearing up to assure "regime change" in that oil-rich desert country. If Obama does expand his war in that direction, the hope for a non-violent transition to civilian governments in Tunisia and Egypt, and other Middle East nations experiencing political unrest will be lost toward a hard-edged militarization of many area governments. Let us examine the nature of the forces, which have emerged in Libya: Al Gaddafi is paranoid for a good reason: On September 1, 1969, at the age of 27, he decided to lead a small group of junior military officers in a bloodless coup against Libyan King Idris, but threats to his power and life soon emerged. Israel and "our" US trained anti-Libyan rebels on West and Central African countries, calling their new allies "The National Front for the Salvation of Libya", though the group was based in Chad! US official records indicate that that funding for the Chad-based secret war against Libya also came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Israel and Iraq.
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or click the URL at www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23947

Dennis Kucinich Battles Libya Bombing

Question: What's going on with your bill to de-fund Libya? Answer: I am actively seeking support. There are so many members out of town and out of their districts, around the country and around the world, so its tough, but after we announced that the bill was supported by Ron Paul, Walter Jones and Pete Stark, we were able to get the required signatures needed. Our bill says that none of the funds expended under this act will be used for our military intervention in Libya. In addition, we expect to end the war in Afghanistan as well. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, there is absolutely NO exit strategy. The more ordinance we use, the more high-tech weapons we'll end up buying. The cost of this war, according to an analysis that just came in, said that by the time we leave, said that the totals will exceed about a billion dollars. To replace more than 100 Tomahawk missiles will be extremely expensive, and our country just can't spend too much more money. It's really irresponsible to vote for these high-tech weapons considering their enormous costs. Further, I would oppose any intervention in Libya whatsoever.

Gaddafi Says Al-Qaeda Operates in Rebellious Areas - He could be right!

William Ewart Gladstone once said that "We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Only then will our world know the blessings of peace. The war on Libya now being waged by the US, Britain and France must surely rank as one of the most stupid martial enterprises since Napoleon decided to invade Russia in 1812: Invading that country with about 500,000 men, he defeated the Russians at the Battle of Borodino, and entered Moscow on September 14, 1812, but was soon unable to support his army there. He was soon forced to retreat across Russia. Severe cold weather and Russian guerrilla tactics reduced the French Army from 500,000 to one less than 50,000! The rest, as they say, is history! The "allied" forces in Libya are already fighting among themselves in hand-to hand combat, arguing about the basic aims of the operation. How does "take all necessary measures" square with the ban on any "foreign occupation force of any form on part of Libyan territory sound to this "coalition" of ours? Samantha Power, who runs the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights in Obama's National Security Council, is an Irish American, 41 years old, who made her name during the "Bush years" with her book: A Problem from Hell, a study of the US foreign-policy response to genocide, and the failure of the Clinton administration to react forcefully to the Rwandan massacres sound?

Webster G. Tarpley: Obama's "Bay of Pigs in Libya" Shredding UN Charter"!

On March 19, US and British cruise missiles joined with French and other NATO combat aircraft in Operation Odyssey Dawn/Operation Ellamy, a "non-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!

Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs!

When all you have is bombs, everything starts to look like a target. After years of providing Libya's dictator with weapons, we need to consider an alternate approach: If the bitter lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, it's that "wars of liberation" exact a deadly toll on those they purportedly liberate, and that "democracy" doesn't come on the back of a Tomahawk missile. Obama announced his latest peace through bombs initiative last week, joining ongoing US conflicts and proxy wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan,Yemen and Somalia, by declaring that he could not "stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy, and where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government." Within 24 hours of his announcement, more than 110 US Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired into Libya, including the capital Tripoli, reportedly killing dozens of innocent civilians, as even "smart" missiles tend to do. According to the New York Times, allied war planes with "brutal efficiency" bombed "tanks, missile launchers, and civilian cars, leaving a smoldering trail of wreckage that stretched for miles,"

Ron Paul: The Fed and Inflation.

Ron reports that the subcommittee which he chaired held a hearing on monetary policy and rising prices. Whether we consider food, gasoline, or clothing, the cost of living is increasing significantly. True inflation is defined as an increase in the money supply. All other things being equal, an increase in the money supply leads to a rise in prices. Inflation's destructive effects have ruined societies from the Roman Empire to Weimar Germany to modern Zimbabwe. Blame for the most recent round of price increases has been laid at the feet of the Federal Reserve's program of credit expansion for the past three years. The current program, known as QE2, sought to purchase a total of $900 billion in US Treasury debt over a period of 8 months. Roughly $110 billion of newly created money is flooding into commodity markets each month. The price of cotton is up more than 170% over the past year, oil is up over 40%, and many categories of food staples are seeing double-digit price growth. This means that food, clothing, and gasoline will become increasingly expensive over the coming year. American families, many of whom already live paycheck to paycheck, increasingly will be forced by these rising prices into unwilling trade-offs: purchasing ground beef instead of steak, drinking water rather than milk, and choosing canned vegetables over fresh, in order to keep food on the table and pay the heating bill. Frugality can be a good thing, but only when it is by choice, and not forced upon the citizenry by the Fed's ruinous monetary policy.

Massachusetts Democrat Representative Marker: Our war against Libya is all about oil!

White man speak truth! Apparently Representative Markey is presently the only honest legislator in our otherwise lackluster "Congress". Markey believes that the US military intervention in Libya is underway because our country is too dependent on foreign oil. A US fighter jet crashed in Libya while on a mission that was part of an "international" effort to put pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The UN Security Council last week passed a resolution that allowed for military intervention in Libya "to protect the civilian population." Based on my experience watching the US and British annihilation of the beautiful city of Dresden, I say to you: "That's just a bunch of crap." Having just escaped our home in Breslau (now called "Wroclaw, Poland) we stood on a hill near the doomed city, to watch their citizens burn under the destruction of British and American bombing. Unfortunately, I still remembered the enormous vibration caused by the heavy British "Lancaster" bombers, which was so intense that it shattered a 12x18 picture on a wall inside the farm house. Since I still remembered our celebration of Christmas in Breslau, I started singing: "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht", while my mother and grandmother wept silently. Though I later became the Intelligence Operations Officer of our US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany, I was still never able to forget the horrors of war, and I became very conscious of my duty as Advisory Team Leader in Vietnam, to bring my men safely out of that war, which I did! By the way, according to a "Reuters posting on the internet, Brazil has called for a ceasefire in Libya. Don't you believe we should take them up on that: Please let your congressman, or woman know where YOU stand. Later, you will be happy that you did: War is an "anomaly" in our world, and its time we put an end to the slaughter of our fellow man (and their women and children)!

Imperial War On Libya, by Stephen Lendman

On March 19, ironically on the eighth anniversary of "Operation Iraqi Freedom", another invasion of a weak country to steal their oil resources, a White House Office of the Press Secretary quoted Obama as saying: "Today I authorize the Armed Forces of the United States to attack Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians", which, I might add, is not at all important to Obama. He added: "That action has now begun" he added, claiming that military action was only used as a last resort. In fact, Obama's war had been in the planning stages for a very long time! All military "interventions" require month of preparation, including target selection, strategy, enlisting political and public support, troop deployments, and post-conflict plans. Weeks, maybe months in advance, Special Forces, CIA agents, and UK SAS operatives were in Libya, enlisting, inciting, funding, and arming so-called anti-Gaddafi opposition forces ahead of the Western aggression for imperial control. A March 19 Department of Defense (DOD) Armed Forces Press Service release announced America's led "Operation Odyssey Dawn," saying: "Coalition forces launched "Operation Odyssey Dawn" today, to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to protect the Libyan people from the country's ruler. (By the way, the same could be said of Obama's rule over Americans).

US and NATO's Coup d'Etat in Libya!!

Professor Michel Chossudovsky, who operates the most important "Think Tank" of our world has once again "Hit the Nail" right on its rotten head: The US and NATO are supporting an armed insurrection in Eastern Libya, and are perversely calling it: "Humanitarian intervention." This is NOT a non-violent protest movement as in Egypt and Tunisia. The armed insurgency in Eastern Libya is directly supported by foreign powers, who see a splendid opportunity to rob the Libyan people of their oil resource, with the obvious intent of screwing the people who make their living in that country out of their oil. The armed insurgency in Eastern Libya is directly supported by foreign powers. The insurrection in Benghazi immediately hoisted the red, black and green banner with crescent and star: The flag of the former monarchy of King Idris, which symbolized the rule of the former colonial powers. US and NATO military "advisers" and special forces are already on the ground. The operation was deliberately planned to coincide with the protest movement in neighboring Arab countries. "Public opinion" was led to believe that the protest movement had spread spontaneously from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya. Thus are our "sheep" being once more fleeced, and continue to be duped!! Please click on my headline to read the entire rotten "explanation" by Obama on http://www.globalresearch.ca/

9-11 Linksand the Environment of "Big Money".

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich - who left office "under a cloud in 1999" has an enormous political backing in elite global (Israel) financial and corporate circles, and can count on friendly support from the controlled media in pursuing his aspirations for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Despite his efforts to portray himself as a "conservative" alternative to politics as usual, Gingrich is an unabashed New World Order internationalist and a long-standing advocate of destructive "free trade" policies and American military adventurism abroad. As such, it is no coincidence Gingrich is a long-standing advocate of destructive "free trade" policies and American military adventurism abroad. As such, it is no coincidence Gingrich is a longtime member of the Rockefeller family financed Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), the New York based affiliate of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the policy-making apparatus of the global empire of the Rothschild banking dynasty that is intricately intertwined with those predatory plutocrats on American soil who dominate the unconstitutional Federal Reserve System, the privately owned money monopoly Ron Paul has worked to bring into line. These facts about Gingrich point to where his REAL loyalties lie.

Have We Authorized Obama to Destroy Libya?

Have our people known that Obama wanted to declare an Imperial War against the people of Libya? On March 19, on the eighth anniversary of George W.'s "Operation Iraqi Freedom", which would have been more nearly correct by calling it: George's temper tantrum against a man who refused to be bullied by "W". But I digress: Obama, who came out of nowhere, and was installed by his fat-cat supporters as an "artificial" president, to provide more and more benefits to our bloated military industrial complex: Remember Ike, the last truly GREAT leader of our country, who reminded those of us who loved him, to deny "the military industrialists, whether sought or unsought, to destroy the America we have grown to love." Unfortunately, Obama is NOT a great president by any standards. As we all recall, after many of us (not me, because I was not duped by his tap-dancing performance), voted for him, he spent a few minutes to pick up his Nobel Prize, and immediately ordered the American war against the people, including women and children, of Afghanistan to be accelerated. Though we might call him a hyppocrate, though not a "hippopotamus", he is much worse than that: He is the destroyer of all which is decent in our world, and if our misguided people still decide to vote for him, he is certain to shatter their dreams into an infernal nightmare which only a firm belief in the Magnificent Founders of our nation will understand. SO Help Me GOD!

Pentagon Overpaid Billionaire Oil Tycoon by up to $200 million.

A Pentagon audit has revealed that the federal government overpaid a billionaire oilman up to $200 million. The audit found that Harry Sargeant III was overpaid on several military contracts worth nearly $2.7 billion. It also found that three contracts the Florida businessman won were awarded under conditions that effectively eliminated other bidders. It estimated that the department paid the oilman $160 million, to $204 million more for fuel than could be supported by price or cost analysis. Sargeant, once a prominent Republican donor, first faced scrutiny over his defense work in October 2008, when he was accused in a congressional probe of using his close relationship with Jordan's royal family to secure exclusive rights over supply routes to US bases in western Iraq. According to the Washington Post, Republican Henry Waxman who led the probe, asserted in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Sargeant had won three jet fuel contracts , despite having the highest bids, because he had an effective monopoly over the routes. He accused Sargeant and his company of price gouging and 'engaging in the worst form of war profiteering.'

Chris Lawrence: US Fires on Libyan Air Defense Targets

According to Pentagon officials, "our" US military launched its first air-strikes on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's air defenses Saturday, a Pentagon official said. "Early this afternoon, over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from both US and British ships and submarines struck more than 20 integrated air defense systems and other air defense facilities ashore, according to US Vice Adm. William Gortney. He said that the majority of the targets were on or near the coast, in the western part of the country. A senior military official said earlier that US Tomahawk missiles landed in the area around Tripoli and Misrata, adding that the action was taken after Gadhafi failed to comply with a cease-fire. "He's clearly been on the offensive," the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said of Gadhafi. "He said that he was going to do a cease-fire, and he continued to move his forces into Benghazi." US President Barack Obama confirmed that he had authorized "limited military action in Libya" and that "that action has now begun." He is planning for the US portion of the military action to last just a few days, according to a senior administration official."