Felicity Arbuthnot: How Many Dirty Western Hands in Libya?

This weekend a detailed article suggests that a French secret serviceman, acting on the express orders of the then President Sarkozy, is suspected of the murder of Colonel Quaddafi, on 20th October last year. While bearing in mind that the NATO backed insurgents now in power, who have destroyed much of Libya, de-stabilized, terrorized and hope to carve up Libya's resources for their, rather than the country's benefit, have every reason to wish to disassociate themselves from the butchery of Colonel Quaddafi's terrible death, the new allegations illuminate interesting points. The French assassin, it is claimed, infiltrated the mob, rabidly manhandling the Colonel, and shot him in the head. The motive, according to well placed Libyan sources, was to prevent any chance of interrogation into Sarkozys links with Colonel Quaddafi. The Mail previously revealed, quoting a French governmental briefing note published by an investigative website, that fifty million euros has been laundered through bank accounts in Panama and Switzerland from Colonel Quaddafi, to fund Sarkozy's 2007 election as President, which, if correct, would have broken political financing laws. Sarkozy's numerous visits to Libya were also cited. Further claims are that The Swiss account was opened in the name of Jean Francois Cope, the leader of Mr Sarkozy's  ruling UMP party, and the President's right hand man. Quadaffis son, Saif allslam, whose life hangs in the balance, no doubt further so, should he be subject to the Libyan judicial system, has stated unequivocally regarding the Sarkozy campaign funding: We have all the details and are ready to reveal everything. We funded it. No wonder Saif, also generous funder to his former place of advanced study, the prestigious London School of Economics, where he also delivered the annual Ralph Miliband Lecture in May 2010, named for renowned academic and father of the former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband and his brother Ed, current leader of the Labor Party, has been abandoned by the Western powers who had formerly welcomed him, then conspired in another illegal coup, this time in his own country.

Julie Levesque: American Drones for Covert Underwater Warfare against Iran.

Obscuring the devastating effects of US drones killing innocent civilians around the world, it is with a touch of rather inappropriate humor and enthusiasm that the military consulting company Strike Fighter Consulting speaks highly of the US Navy's new Unmanned Underwater Vehicles in its recently published article, Unmanned Drones Take to the Seas: "It looks like drone pilots are going to need swimming lessons. The US Navy is currently experimenting with a new breed of drone submarines in the waters next to Newport, Rhode Island. Their hope is that these drones will take the first steps, or the first doggy paddle, if you will, into a future of autonomous submarines: These drones, which are technically known as Unmanned Underwater Vehicles,could be a game changer for the Navy, said Christopher Egan, a program manager at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. Every single thing that makes aerial drones so effective, can just as easily be applied to submarines. (Dabney B Unmanned Drones take to the Seas, Strike Fighter Consulting Inc, September 19, 2012, emphasis added.) What kind of efficiency are we talking about here? Drone warfare has been most efficient in killing innocent civilians, including children, according to a study by Stanford University and New York University: According to the new study, just one in fifty victims of the CIA program of targeted drone strikes in Pakistan's areas are known militants, while between 2,562 and 3,325 people were killed in Pakistan between June 2004 and mid September this year of whom between 474 were civilians, including 176 children. We are told that these new cost efficient underwater drones could be used to map the ocean floor, detect enemy mines, gather surveillance, or assist in anti-submarine warfare. The Navy hopes that the Razor would be virtually undetectable by enemy systems.

Tomgram: Mattea Kramer, A Recipe for American Decline!

With that jutting jaw of steel, think of him as the next Clark Kent, hence also Superman, promising to save the world - don't worry about just how. Opposite him, imagine Chris Pine as James T Kirk, commander of the rebooted USS Enterprise, promising repeatedly to boldly go where no man has gone before. Or call it Romney v Obama in "The Debates," and imagine them as what they are: two actors preparing to take on monumental TV roles this October. Both of them, like the performers they have to be in the coming productions that are by now essentially to the entertainment spectacle of an American presidential campaign, have been rehearsing for months. They have conducted numerous "mock debates" in which Ohio Senator Rob Portman plays Obama for Romney, as he did in 2008 for John Kerry, the Romney of the 2004 campaign, approximately plays Romney of the 2004 campaign, appropriately plays Romney for Team Obama. For these crucial roles, they must both become card carrying deficit slashers, tax cutters, retarders of government growth, job creators, preservers of Medicare, national security "funders" par excellence, fierce defenders of Israel, and men ready to whatever must be done to prevent Iran from going nuclear. They must,, that is, become perfect fictions, and though the debates are still upcoming, both presidential candidates recently had an out of town preview on "60 Minutes," where, interviewed separately, each confirmed one crucial thing: that it's possible to spend a great deal of time on TV and tell the audience almost nothing. The key issues in what passes for American political debate are simple enough: Which performer will flub his lines? Who will commit the most memorable "gaffe"? Who is most believable, or looks most presidential. Which one would you most want to have a beer with?

Tom Engelhardt: A Recipy for American Decline That No one Will Be Debating

With that jutting jaw of steel, think of him as the next Clark Kent, hence also Superman, promising to save our world. Opposite him, imagine Chris Pine as James T Kirk, commander of the rebooted USS Enterprise, promising repeatedly to boldly go where no man has gone before. Or call it Romney v Obama in "The Debates," and imagine them as what they are: two actors preparing to take on monumental TV roles this October. Both of them, like the performers they have to be in the coming productions that are by now essential to the entertainment spectacle of an American presidential campaign, have been rehearsing for months. They have conducted numerous "mock debates" in which Ohio Senator Rob Portman plays Obama for Romney, as he did in 2008 for John McCain, and Senator John Kerry, the Romney of the 2004 campaign, appropriately plays Romney for Team Obama. For these crucial roles, they must both become card carrying deficit slashers, tax cutters, retarders of government growth, job creators, preservers of Medicare, national security funders par excellence, fierce defenders of Israel, and men ready to do whatever must be done to prevent Iran from going nuclear. They must, that is, become perfect fictions. And though the debates are still upcoming, both presidential candidates recently had an out of town preview on 60 Minutes,where, interviewed separately, each confirmed one crucial thing: that it's possible to spend a great deal of time on TV and tell an audience almost nothing. The key issues in what passes for American political debate are simple enough: Which performer will flub his lines? Who will commit the most memorable "gaffe"? Who is most believable or looks most "presidential"? Which one would you want to have a beer with? Which do you feel "understands" your problems best?

Stephen Lendman: Drones - Instruments of State Terror!

A new report, jointly prepared by Stanford University's International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic (SU) and New York University School of Law's Global Justice Clinic (NYU) is titled "Living Under Drones. "Part one discusses strikes on rescuers, funerals, and other civilian targets. Part one discusses strikes on rescuers, funerals, and other civilian targets. Part two examines surveillance, the effects of drones overhead, and how their use creates fear and distrust. Part two examines surveillance, the effects of drones overhead, and how their use creates fear and distrust. Part three considers the economic and impoverishment hardships families and communities sustain. Overall SU/NYU examines key aspects of the CIA's drone policy. It exposes facts political Washington and media scoundrels suppress. The dominant narrative claims drone strikes are precise and effective. They involve "targeted killings." Terrorists are assassinated with "minimal downsides or collateral impacts." As a result, America is much safer. "This narrative is false." It's a bald faced lie. Drone strikes are indiscriminate. Mostly noncombatant civilians are killed. The SU/NYU report followed nine months of intensive research. They included two investigations in Pakistan. Over 130 interviews were conducted with victims, witnesses, and experts. Thousands of pages of documentation and media reports were reviewed. This report "presents evidence of the damaging and counterproductive effects of America's drone strike policy. Firsthand evidence confirms it. So called benefits don't exist. Civilians sustain enormous harm. "Living Under Drones" exposes what official accounts won't say. Reevaluating Washington's drone policy is urgently needed. Civilian casualties are rarely acknowledged. Significant evidence proves they're commonplace.

Rick Rozoff: NATO Reinforces Pentagon's Shift to the Asia-Pacific Region

On September 24, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization granted Iraq the second individual Partnership and Cooperation Program under the auspices of the bloc's latest military collaboration and integration framework partners across the globe. The latter program, for which the substantives are occasionally capitalized, NATO's latest, incorporates to date eight nations in the broader Asia Pacific region, including West Asia, the Middle East, that have supplied troops for the US led military organization's war in Afghanistan, under NATO consultative arrangements and training programs like the Afghanistan- Pakistan -ISAF Tripartite Commission, the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan and the NATO Training Mission Iraq. The partners across the globe currently are Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Korea. Among the 50 nations providing NATO with troop contingents for the war in South Asia are additional Asia-Pacific states not covered by other international NATO partnership formats like the Partnership for Peace, including 22 nations in Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, the Mediterranean Dialogue, with seven nations in North Africa and the Middle East, with Libya to be the eighth, and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, which targets the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Those states, Malaysia, Singapore and Malaysia, are likely the next candidates for the new global partnership, as are Latin American troop contributors like El Salvador and Columbia. The inclusion of the last will mark the expansion of NATO, through memberships and partnerships, to all six inhabited continents.    

Peter Dale Scott: Systemic Destabilization!!

From an American standpoint, it is easy to see clearly how Italian history was systematically destabilized in the second half of the 20th century, by a series of what I call structural deep events. I have defined these as "events, like the JFK assassination, the Watergate break in, or 9/11, which violate the social structure, have a major impact on society, repeatedly involve law breaking or violence, and in many cases proceed from an unknown dark force: The examples in Italy, well known to Italians, include the Piazza Fontana bombing of 1969, the della Loggia bombing of 1974, and the Bologna railway bombing of 1980. These bombings, in which over one hundred civilians were killed and many more wounded, were attributed at the time to marginal left wing elements of society. However, thanks chiefly to a series of investigations and judicial proceedings, it is now clearly established that the bombings were the work of right wing elements in collusion with Italian military intelligence, as part of an on going "strategy of tension" to discredit the Italian left, encourage support for a corrupt status quo, and perhaps move beyond democracy altogether. As one of the conspirators, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, later stated, "The December 1969 explosion was supposed to be the detonator which would have convinced the political and military authorities to declare a state of emergency." Vinciguerra also revealed that he and others had also been members of a paramilitary "stay-behind" network originally organized at the end of World War II by the CIA and NATO as "Operation Gladio." In 1984, questioned by judges about the 1980 Bologna station bombing, Vinciguerra said: "With the massacre of Peteano, and with all those that have followed, the knowledge should by now be clear that there existed a real live structure, occult and hidden, with the capacity of giving a strategic direction to the outrages - it lies within the state itself: There exists in Italy a secret force parallel to the armed forces, composed of civilians and military men, in an anti-Soviet capacity that is, to organize a resistance on Italian soil against a Russian army, a secret organization, a super organization with a network of communications, arms and explosives, and men trained to use them.