TRIBUNE - Aren't we all hypocrites?

I'm getting really sick and tired of the biased news reports on the current situation in Libya. Of course, you will see a lot of media operatives persuading you to think this is a good and justified war aimed at helping Libyans, but the facts and events just don’t add up to that.

To say that "Gaddafi's security forces cracked down ferociously when thousands of Libyans rebelled against his rule." is just a repetition of the western party line, which has no basis in fact.

The Libya War was sold to the public as a humanitarian intervention, but very quickly evolved into an effort to overthrow a government, using drones that bomb civilians, and ignoring pleas for peace. The so called "rebellion against his rule" was a covert CIA operation. Both CIA agents and MI6 agents from the UK were already on the ground at the start of this so-called spontaneous rebellion. This I find too coincidental, given both agencies precedents, and given the strategic importance of Libyan oil, to accept at face VALUE. Both agencies, as well as the compliant western media, used the ruse that what had happened in Tunisia and Egypt was what was happening in Libya. However, they knew full well that they could sell it because of the basic ignorance of most Americans and West Europeans concerning world affairs, not to mention the fact that those who control this media also want Gaddafi removed because he's been a thorn in their side for decades. As an example of this you will recall that not long after the start up of what in actual fact became a civil war, the Italian Foreign Minister stated categorically that over 10,000 civilians had lost their lives. In actual fact, all international agencies who normally track this sort of phenomenon had a body count of less than 3,000 and the majority of them were either rebel combatants or Libyan army troops.

Fundamentally, if anyone really wants to know why the west decided to finally attack Libya, go to this website (www.algathafi.org/html-english/index.htm) and download the speech Ghaddafi made at the UN on 23rd Sept 2009.

Ghaddafi knows well enough, as we all need to admit, that NATO's intervention was not about the protection of civilians. The main objective, ab-initio, was to get him out of power.

Resolution 1973 was just a ploy to strip Libya of its sovereignty to enable those that have, through the years, been looking for his head on a platter to have their ways. This is the chance of a life time to be rid of him and none of the countries involved is willing to let this golden opportunity slip by.

He should therefore save his breath, they have him and no offer or observance of ceasefire will sway NATO and the Coalition. They are so happy blasting away a people who have no means of retaliation, including the Ghaddafi family compound. Does bombing his family compound, knowing that his small grandchildren were living there, make NATO any better? And, of course, under the UN pretext of ‘humanitarian aid’. That’s NATO courage! Just shooting sitting ducks! SHAMEFUL! Perhaps it would have been better had Ghaddafi purchased a few anti-warship missiles and hit a French aircraft carrier. Crusaders need to pay for their actions!

Who can explain how the dropping of over 3000 $400,000 missiles on Western Libya is about saving lives? There is no free lunch. Libya, after Ghaddafi, must re-reimburse, with profit! Forget about the loss of innocent human lives! What counts is that the more NATO blasts up and destroys the better, as finally the West will be restructuring, at a high price, of course!
Until Ghaddafi is out, NATO will continue bombing civilians to protect civilians. What cheek!

Concern for the Libyan people? Empathy for the poor people being bombed and murdered on both sides? Concern about what will happen to the Libyan people in the future? No, nothing of that sort. Just smiling and hugging each other and thinking how it would serve our own selfish benefits. That’s all it’s about. What a phony and conceited attitude!

Pay close attention to the details, and you will see Western powers moving towards a resolution only when they've figured out how to privatize the Libyan oil.

The simple fact of the matter is that the oil industry was controlled by the Libyan state oil company National Oil, which renegotiate profit sharing terms with globalist oil companies. Gaddafi was threatening to go even further and dismantle National Oil and distribute oil revenue directly to the people.

I'll take a wild guess and say that once the rebels are in power, the oil industry of Libya will be privatized and end the 40 years of nationalization. But what am I saying ; the Libyan rebels well NEVER be in power! They will be minions serving the interests of the foreign multinational corporations. They have served their purpose! Now, we should stop calling them rebels; they are just armed insurgents who may one day even turn against their new occupiers. The Afghan example would fit in perfectly.

But really, who are the so-called ‘rebels’? Who are they promoting to put in power? The ‘rebels’ broke the first cease-fire by attacking Libyan troops. Why are they so dead SET against any cease fire? Instead of asking these questions we just go ahead and believe everything that NATO and the Coalition tell us like the blind sheep that we are.

To most informed people with a sense of history, the Libyan story is no different to the colonial wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
None can deny that fact. Notwithstanding it being so blatantly obvious, I am convinced that there is little hope for America with this level of blissful ignorance among its citizens to realize the conspiracy worked out over their heads.

Wake up, this is a war, Obama and Company War. He started it by firing 200 Tomahawk missiles into Libya at a cost of $1.5 million each. The U.S. is the backbone of NATO which was SET up to defend a country that might be attacked. Take away US participat¬ion, and NATO would fold its tent and go home today. As bad as Ghaddafi could be depicted, he was not a threat to any country. He had given up his nuclear ambitions. Despite all, NATO and its Coalition are still bombing; it is a war for regime change.

The U.S. military intervention in Libya was never authorized by the U.S. Congress, and thus violates U.S. law and the U.S. Constitution. When the 60 day limit expired, Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who led the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 and 2004, said: "This appears to be the first time that any president has violated the War Powers Resolution's requirement either to terminate the use of armed forces within 60 days after the initiation of hostilities or get Congress's support". President Obama has become the new puppet of imperialism.

Ghaddafi consented to a ceasefire and to democratic elections in the African Union negotiations. Obama, the ‘Nobel Peace Prize’ winner, has utterly ignored that deal, and will no doubt refuse to seek a peaceful solution. Obama, NATO, and the ‘Coalition’ flagrantly refused to show up at the talks.

There's something very rotten about all of this! Aren’t elections the goal? Why would the West reject elections in an agreement established through the African Union? The goal, as stated by Robert Gates, the U.S. Secretary of Defence, is to ‘kill Ghaddafi and the Libyan military’.
Marc Ginsberg, former U.S. Jewish-American ambassador and ex-Presidential advisor gave it all away. He asserted that “the U.S. should not stand in Sarkozy’s way in Libya”. “After all, isn’t it in America’s strategic interest to accommodate French designs in Libya? Messr. Sarkozy is actually using France’s aggressive role in Libya to resurrect his long cherished goal of creating a French dominated "Union of the Mediterranean".

What else is there to say than this overt account? All the hidden motives for this aggression are laid bare for those who want to see. And I sorrowfully note the lack of any mention of and concern for the Libyan people!
Real protesters of any cause have disappeared from the streets in this country, and are only to be found on the Web (where their effect is zero or possibly less).

“We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.”
William James

Without presenting a shred of reliable evidence, NATO and International Criminal Court conspirators are charging the Libyan government with conspiracy to rape - not only rape as the "collateral damage" of war, but rape as a political weapon.
This charge of an orchestrated future campaign of rapes was made at a major press conference called by the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on June 8, 2011. The even wilder unsubstantiated ICC charge that Libya plans to mass distribute Viagra to its troops confirms this as the most tawdry and threadbare form of war propaganda.
It is important to understand that NATO countries with the full complicity of the corporate media and the ICC are spreading this Big Lie in order to win support for and close down all opposition to a ground assault of Libya, something that would otherwise be unpopular both in Europe and the United States. This wild charge adds to the evidence of a massive escalation in bombing urban targets in Libya, the use of British and French helicopters that give close support to ground troops and the positioning in the Mediterranean off Libya of U.S. warships that can quickly land troops. The NATO alliance is desperate to put Libya beyond all discussion or defense and raise the NATO war to the level of a Holy Crusade to defend women.
The charge of rape as a political weapon was spread - without evidence - against Serb forces to justify U.S. plans for the first NATO bombing campaign in the history of the military alliance in 1994 in Bosnia and was used again in 1999 in Serbia in the first NATO occupation. The rape charge was used to soften up the U.S. and European population for the criminal war against Yugoslavia. Now a similar plan is in the works for Libya.
All too often widely fabricated lies are spread to justify imperialist wars. In 1991 the first war against Iraq was justified by outrageous charges that the Iraqi army had grabbed Kuwaiti babies from incubators and smashed the babies to the floor. This was presented as reliable “testimony” to in the U.S. Congress and in the UN. Months later it was confirmed as a total fabrication. But the lie had served its purpose. In 2001 the corporate media and U.S. politicians claimed that they had to bomb and then massively occupy Afghanistan to win rights for women that the Taliban taken away. The situation for women in Afghanistan and for the entire population has deteriorated further under U.S./NATO occupation.
Despite video and photo evidence that the entire world has seen through WikiLeaks, the International Criminal Court has never considered for a moment filing criminal charges against U.S. British, French or German troops.
The pictures, videos and reports in major newspapers of sexual torture and humiliation at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by U.S. soldiers, the testimony by the U.S. soldiers involved in rapes, tortures, mutilations and executions in Iraq and Afghanistan confirms the brutal reality of U.S. wars. These wars have never been to ‘save’ women.
As an African country, Libya can hardly expect a fair hearing or any form of justice from the ICC. The International Criminal Court created with high hopes of international justice in 2002 has been used against 7 countries – all in Africa. Meanwhile, the ICC has never examined U.S. drone attacks on defenseless civilians in at least 8 African, Arab and South Asian countries. Nor has it even touched U.S. invasions and occupations. Israeli bombing of the Palestinian people is “off limits”.
This is an essential time to remind all people concerned about the rights of women that U.S. intervention or any imperialist intervention has never protected women. Even women serving within the U.S. military machine are not “safe”. According to a study published by the Journal of Military Medicine, 71 per cent of women soldiers have been sexually assaulted or raped while serving in the U.S. military. Women who have been assaulted consistently report poor medical treatment, lack of counseling, incomplete criminal investigations and threats of punishment for reporting the assaults. In 2009 the Pentagon admitted that approximately 80 per cent of rapes are never reported – making it the most under-documented crime in the military. In addition U.S. military bases are all too often surrounded by an entire sex industry of abused women forced by hunger, dislocation and lost families into work in bars and clubs.
Rape in every society has little connection news.leader@northeast-press.co.ukto sexuality and desire. It has always been about imposing power and domination.
The "political rape" charge in this case makes no sense and has no basis beyond the U.S.-NATO desire to justify expanding the war against Libya.
Stop U.S.-NATO intervention in Libya.

For those who thought the Egyptian revolution is done and past, think again. The Egyptians did not go home. They are out there again if things do not turn out the way they had hoped.

There’s no question that the unrest in Egypt is of paramount world concern. Opinions vary about how this situation will work out, but many analysts think, or rather hope, that this situation could actually have a positive outcome for Egypt.

One must keep in mind that Egypt’s standing in the Arab and Islamic world is partly linked to its role as a patron of the Palestinian cause in the era of Nasser.

There is talk about America's worries that a government less friendly to the USA will be installed. That is secondary, as long as it is a government that cares for its own people. And maybe if the US doesn't interfere, there is a chance of that happening. Hopefully the Egyptians would not swallow the bait of falling in the same gutter that they managed to escape from, enticed by the hypocritical words of Obama; “We stand ready to provide assistance that is necessary to help the Egyptian people as they manage the aftermath of these protests.” In her statement, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton claimed that Washington’s concern in relation to Egypt was to bring about a “real democracy” and not a “so-called democracy that then leads to what we saw in Iran.” Sometimes the argument comes in the form of "I support democracy, but only if I agree with the results." In other words, her sole criterion for a democracy is not the will of the people, but subordination to US interests or perhaps an imperialist ‘pax americana’.
The fear really is an Egypt that no one can predict. Will it continue in its former alliances? What good are its former alliances if they have to be maintained by a brutal and corrupt police force in the streets of Cairo?

The young activists who had organised the protests are still very optimistic but would not give up the pressure on the army to fulfil all its reform pledges, including the release of thousands of political prisoners. The leadership of the Coalition for change is still divided over the extent to which the army can be trusted.

If the Egyptian masses were allowed to express their genuine aspirations at the ballot box it would spell an end to the country’s role as a servile client of Washington and Israel. The issue that worries the US is that when people are free, they try to be independent. They will not accept living in the custody of the US.

Many western leaders are worried that the failure of the Egyptian regime could see the Muslim Brotherhood, the most well-organised opposition party, take control. The Mubarak regime has historically used the Muslim Brotherhood as a bogeyman to frighten the people and the Western countries. However, it's not radical Islam that worries the US – it's the independence. The nature of any regime it backs in the Arab world is secondary to control. Subjects are ignored until they break their chains. The US and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.
There was a sense among reformists in Cairo that the army has been true to its word so far. Indeed, the Army has unequivocally stated that "it will not be an alternative to the legitimacy approved by the people". But concerns have mounted in the last days. Secular democratic parties are not involved in the dialogue the Army currently has with the Muslim Brotherhood. The process for reforming the constitution is far too quick and is not inclusive. Representatives of the old regime are there but there are no women. The question here is this: ‘Is the army more representative of the people, or more representative of the old status quo?’ It boggles the mind to think that, after all the sacrifices the country made to unseat a dictatorship, a new one seems to lurk in the shadows of this promising new era.
The pledge that elections would take place within six months was welcomed, but a faster timetable was then introduced, making it impossible for the impoverished liberal parties like Wafd ('Delegation') or El Ghad ('Tomorrow) to organise. The Muslim Brotherhood gets huge financial support from the Gulf States and is experienced in fighting elections. While the Brotherhood will not put up a presidential candidate, it will fight across the country for parliamentary seats. Alternatively, the hugely-popular Wael Ghoneim - a Google manager who was held and beaten up during the recent violence - has already been drawn into talks with the administration. Political groups would be able to accept unlimited funding from individuals, corporations or even foreign powers interested in influencing the presidential elections. This will leave the Egyptian political system ripe for corruption.
The young demonstrators are determined that the future political make-up of Egypt should reflect their role in the revolution. Nevertheless, getting rid of the dictators was only the first step of a process in which ordinary people will fight for their rights, notably better wages and public services. In a country of 80 million with 40% that live below the World Bank poverty level of $2 a day, it’s doubtful that the ‘youth element’ would hold the voting majority.
"All Egyptians now think they are Che Guevara, Castro or something," says Essam el-Erian, a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, bursting into laughter. "This is democracy."
Foreign governments, especially those in Europe and the US, have to make major reassessments as the Arab world makes up its own mind at last.

"Peoples of Egypt, you will be told that I have come to destroy your religion. Do not believe it! Reply that I have come to restore your rights!"
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1798