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Libya: The Objective of “Humanitarian Bombing” is Death and Destruction

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Friday, March 25, 2011

The Bombing of Civilian Targets
The objective is not to come to the rescue of civilians.
Quite the opposite. Both military as well as civilian targets have been pre-selected. 

Civilian casualties are intentional. They are not the result of “collateral damage”. 

Early reports confirm that hospitals, civilian airports and government buildings have been bombed. 

Within hours of the air attacks, a Libyan government health official “said the death toll from the Western air strikes had risen to 64 on Sunday after some of the wounded died.” The number of wounded was of the order of 150. (Montreal Gazette, Gadhafi hurls defiance as allied forces strike Libya, March 19, 2011).
The death toll resulting from aerial bombings and missile attacks (March 24) is of the order of 100 civilians, according to Libyan government sources ( UN Chief Expects Int’l Community to Avoid Civilian Casualties in Libya, March 25, 2011)

Media Disinformation
These deaths resulting from US-NATO missiles and aerial bombings are either denied or casually dismissed as `collateral damage`. According to British Foreign Secretary William Hague modern humanitarian warfare does result in civilian deaths, a totally absurd proposition:

“This operation has been doing what it was meant to do, protect the civilian population of Libya, and there is no confirmed evidence of any casualties at all, civilian casualties, caused by the coalition strikes on the Gaddafi regime,” (British Foreign Secretary William Hague,  No evidence of civilian casualties in Libya strikes: UK | Reuters, March 25, 2011)

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirms that “The coalition is going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and most of the targets are air defence targets isolated from populated areas.” (West trying to avoid Libyan civilian deaths: Robert Gates – World – DNA, March 22, 2011)

The objective of the media disinformation campaign is to blatantly obfuscate the loss of life of civilians.  Western media reports on casualties are heavily convoluted. Tomahawk missiles and aerial bombings are upheld as instruments of peace and democracy. They do not result in civilian deaths.

Without media disinformation, the legitimacy of the military operation under R2P would collapse like a deck of card.

Several hundred people gather at a funeral. The latter is dismissed as Qadhafi propaganda.

Read the rest of the article.

Globalist Coalition Claims “Precision” Bombs Do Not Kill Libyan Civilians

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, March 24, 2011

CNN and the corporate media are trying their darnedest to put the best face on Obama’s illegal attack against the people of Libya under the auspices of the United Nations and its bankster overlords.

Confronted with grisly images broadcast on Libyan state television of dead civilians wantonly slaughtered by the Coalition of Globalists after a fifth night of bombing raids, CNN said it could not “independently verify the circumstances of the deaths or who the victims were… Coalition leaders have reported no civilian casualties so far and said that Western jets have dropped precision bombs on military targets.”

The CNN article then moves on to portray the brutality of the official enemy, Gaddafi, and that of his military forces fighting in Misrata and Ajdabiya.

In order to dispute the bombardment killings, CNN sent its lead actor, Nic Robertson, out to find the victims. Led by incompetent Libyan government bureaucrats, Robertson and his team were unable to find bodies to video tape, thus leading television viewers to come away with the impression Gaddafi and his besieged government are making it all up and underscore the assertion that Coalition “precision” bombs do not kill civilians.



It is the same line used during the illegal invasion of Iraq when the corporate media launched a Pentagon coordinated military psychological operation against the American people.

During Bush Junior’s invasion, the BBC remarked that it was relentlessly pummeled with lies and deception by the government. “We’re absolutely sick and tired of putting things out and finding out they’re not true. The misinformation in this war is far and away worse than any conflict I’ve covered, including the first Gulf War and Kosovo,” said one senior BBC executive.

The French have also pushed the propaganda line that supposed humanitarian military interventions launched by globalists and one-worlders do not kill civilians.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé declared that airstrikes against Libya have been a “success” and denied civilians had been killed. Juppé said the strikes will continue as long as necessary, that is until Gadaffi is dead and Libya is reduced to a smoking ruin like other Muslims countries that have had the misfortune of experiencing Pentagon-imposed democracy firsthand.


Juppé appeared to be responding to the attack on a military base Thursday in a residential area near the capital. Libya’s state news agency said the raids had killed “a large number” of civilians.

It is unknown if CNN was able to locate the dead.

Libya: Lowest Approval Rating Ever For Military Action

Gallup
Thursday, March 24, 2011

PRINCETON, NJ — A Gallup poll conducted Monday finds more Americans approving than disapproving of the military action against Libya by the United States and other countries.



The March 21 poll was conducted just days after the United States joined other countries in conducting airstrikes against Libya to enforce a United Nations no-fly zone. The U.N. passed a resolution calling for a no-fly zone in response to reports that Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi had attacked Libyan forces opposed to his government.

The 47% of Americans approving of the action against Libya is lower than what Gallup has found when asking about approval of other U.S. military campaigns in the past four decades.

Americans showed the highest level of support for the 2001 military action in Afghanistan that was a response to the 9/11 terror attacks. Americans also widely supported U.S. airstrikes against Iraq in 1993 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Full story here.

Special Trend Alert: The 1st Great War of 21st Century Has Begun!

Gerald Celente
Trends Research
March 22, 2011

KINGSTON, NY 21 March 2011 — It is a bad science fiction movie written by mad political scientists.

Exactly eight years to the day that President George W. Bush took America and his “Coalition of the Willing” to war with Iraq, President Barack Obama has taken America and his “Broad Coalition” to war with Libya.

And just as the world was sold a “coalition of the willing” that was predominantly a fleeting alliance of the cajoled and the arm-twisted, the putatively “broad” Obama coalition consists primarily of America’s two cronies-in-war, the UK and France.

Only in a mad political science fiction movie could a President engaged in perpetuating two unjust, immoral, interminable and expensive wars begun by his predecessor, take his nation into yet another unjust, immoral, expensive and, in all likelihood, interminable war … and expect a happy ending!

Eight years of war in Iraq and 11 in Afghanistan has resolved nothing and served only to inflame anti-American sentiment around the world, drain the US treasury, kill and wound hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people and destroy the lives, limbs and souls of thousands of American troops.

Batting zero on the battle field, the mad political scientists have stepped up to the plate again. Despite nothing but failure, President Obama has decided, unilaterally, to squander still more American men and money in a war on Libya, promising that this time he won’t strike out.

In what could be a casting call for a mad sci-fi movie starring the Three Stooges, America’s newest Decider-in-Chief fights from the safety of the Oval Office while his equally battle-unscarred and chicken-hearted French and British counterparts, Nicolas “Sarko the American” Sarkozy and David (Eton/Oxford, what else?) Cameron lead the charge from the plush distance of the Palais de l’Élysée and 10 Downing Street.

What’s Next? Having accurately predicted, at their onsets, that the Afghan and Iraq wars would be failures, we now predict that war with Libya will not only be equally unsuccessful, but could have even graver global
implications. Will Gaddafi fold without a fight? Or, faced by defeat and certain death, will he hit London, Paris, or New York with bio warfare, a dirty bomb or other tactic?

Absent a worst-case terror attack, even if the “broad coalition” overthrows and kills Qaddaifi, it will not amount to victory any more than executing Saddam Hussein and routing the Taliban has brought victory to Iraq and Afghanistan.

If it feels as though the world is spinning out of control, that’s because it is … and at breakneck speed! In just the past few months, revolution has engulfed the entire Middle East and North Africa. In just the past week a gigantic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown has crippled Japan. And war, (under whatever guise; e.g., “humanitarian crisis” or “answering the call of a threatened people”) has been declared on Libya.

The trend to the “1^st Great War of the 21^st Century” is accelerating. Events are happening so quickly that it is nearly impossible for us to compile, absorb, analyze and distill the voluminous information in our Trend Alertsbefore they are eclipsed by the cascade of new events.

To keep you abreast of the breaking news and ahead of the trends, we are upgrading our popular Trends in the News videos to a bi-weekly Tuesday and Thursday regular feature – which will be expanded on a need-to-know basis. (www.trendsjournal.com)

We urge subscribers to log in this Tuesday for a Trends in the News special devoted to the opening salvos of the “1^st Great War of the 21^st Century” … the War that no one else to date is either recognizing or daring to talk about.
It is in our Spring Trends Journal, now scheduled for mid April publication, where we will compile, absorb, analyze and distill the voluminous information.

This edition represents a crucial episode in the “History of the Future” – a blow-by-blow build-up to war, rather than the mainstream media’s blah-by-blah coverage. Busy cheerleading the home team they are, even at this late stage, incapable of recognizing that the game ends with the 1^st Great War of the 21^st Century.

What will the War mean to you personally? What can YOU do to prepare yourself for what’s to come? What can be done to individually and collectively halt the march to war – or at least divert and mitigate the damage. The Spring Trends Journal will be devoted to exploring these and other issues in depth.

 

Cost Of Libya War: $100 Million Dollars A Day

Megan Scully
National Journal
March 22, 2011


With U.N. coalition forces bombarding Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi from the sea and air, the United States’ part in the operation could ultimately hit several billion dollars — and require the Pentagon to request emergency funding from Congress to pay for it.

The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn had a price tag that was well over $100 million for the U.S. in missiles alone. And the U.S. military, which remains in the lead now in its third day, has pumped millions more into air- and sea-launched strikes targeting air-defense sites and ground-force positions along Libya’s coastline.

The ultimate total that the United States spends will hinge on the length and scope of the strikes as well as on the contributions of its coalition allies. But Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said on Monday that the U.S. costs could “easily pass the $1 billion mark on this operation, regardless of how well things go.”

The Pentagon has the money in its budget to cover unexpected contingencies and can also use fourth-quarter dollars to cover the costs of operations now.

“They’re very used to doing this operation where they borrow from Peter to pay Paul,” said Gordon Adams, who served as the Office of Management and Budget’s associate director for national security during the Clinton administration.

Full article here

Ron Paul: Libya and Unintended Consequences

Anti-aircraft fire in the sky over Libya

Youtube
March 21, 2011

Gaddafi’s Gold Can Finance Mercenaries For Years

Gold key to financing Gaddafi struggle

Jack Farchy and Roula Khalaf
Financial Times
Monday, March 21, 2011

The international community has hit Muammer Gaddafi with a raft of sanctions and asset freezes aimed at cutting off his funding. But the embattled Libyan leader is sitting on a pot of gold.

The Libyan central bank – which is under Col Gaddafi’s control – holds 143.8 tonnes of gold, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund, although some suspect the true amount could be several tonnes higher.

Those reserves, among the top 25 in the world, are worth more than $6.5bn at current prices, enough to pay a small army of mercenaries for months or even years.

Full story here.

Roscoe Savages Obama: No Congressional Approval For Attack On Libya

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett Says President Obama’s Unilateral Choice to Order U.S. Military Force Against Qadhafi is an Affront to Our Constitution

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett
Monday, March 21, 2011

Washington, Mar 21 - Congressman Roscoe Bartlett released the following statement today concerning the situation in Libya. Congressman Bartlett represents Maryland’s Sixth District and he is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces of the House Armed Services Committee.

“The United States does not have a King’s army. President Obama’s unilateral choice to use U.S. military force in Libya is an affront to our Constitution. President Obama’s administration has repeated the mistakes of the Clinton administration concerning bombing in Kosovo and the George W. Bush administration concerning invading Iraq by failing to request and obtain from the U.S. Congress unambiguous prior authorization to use military force against a country that has not attacked U.S. territory, the U.S. military or U.S. citizens.
This is particularly ironic considering then-Senator Obama campaigned for the Democratic nomination based upon his opposition to President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.

“Moammar Qadhafi is a tyrant despised throughout the Middle East and North Africa. His brutal and merciless attacks against his own citizens are horrific. It is self-evident that the tragic situation in Libya is not an emergency since the Obama administration sought and obtained support from both the Arab League and the United Nations Security Council to authorize military force against Qadhafi.

The Obama administration also had time to organize a 22-nation coalition to implement a no-fly zone with military attacks led by U.S. Armed Forces against Qadhafi’s forces. Nonetheless, the Obama administration failed to seek approval from the American people and their elected legislators in the Congress. Failing to obtain authorization from the U.S. Congress means that President Obama has taken sole responsibility for the outcome of using U.S. military forces against Qadhafi onto his shoulders and his administration.”

---------------------------------------------------

Obama In 2007: ‘President Does Not Have Power Under Constitution to Unilaterally Authorize a Military Attack’

Fred Lucas
CNS News
Monday, March 21, 2011

(CNSNews.com) – As a presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) emphatically stated that the Constitution does not give the president the authority to unilaterally authorize a military attack unless it is needed to stop an actual or imminent attack on the United States.

Obama made the assertion in a Dec. 20, 2007 interview with the Boston Globe when reporter Charlie Savage asked him under what circumstances the president would have the constitutional authority to bomb Iran without first seeking authorization from Congress.

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama responded.

“As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States,” Obama continued. “In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch.”

Full story here.

Journalists as human sheilds? "This allegation is outrageous and it's absolutely hypocritical"

Robertson: This allegation is outrageous and it's absolutely hypocritical

CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson responds to allegations that reporters in Libya were used by Gadhafi's forces as a human shield.  A full transcript of the interview is after the jump.

CNN.com:  CNN correspondent rejects Fox report on human shields
 

UN Powers Violate Their Own Resolution By Targeting Gaddafi

Attack on Libya is illegal under both U.S. law and UN charter; Manufactured pretext of “protecting civilians” completely collapses as Russia, Arab League and African Union condemn air strikes

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, March 21, 2011

As the contrived moral high ground behind the absurdly hypocritical “humanitarian” pretext of the attack on Libya collapses in the wake of Russia, the Arab League and the African Union condemning the US-led NATO bombings, so does any pretense of legality that the “no fly zone” resolution holds, because the obvious attempt to assassinate Gaddafi violates not only U.S. law, but the UN’s own charter.



Vladimir Putin’s characterization of the air strikes as a “medieval crusade” and his warning that the attacks prove why Russia has to build up its defenses against NATO is the most damning indictment of the campaign thus far. It follows an Arab League u-turn as well as an African Union condemnation, as all the lies and bluster about a “humanitarian mission” crumble within days of the assault being launched.

The Orwellian delusion that the “no fly zone” anything other than a cruel hoax became obvious within hours, as NATO rejected Libya’s proposal for independent third party countries to patrol the skies and instead launched an instantaneous bombardment of Gaddafi’s military facilities, strikes that have killed dozens of innocent people according to Libyan claims that have been confirmed by Russia.

From the very beginning, this war had nothing to do with “protecting civilians” and everything to do with toppling the leader of Africa’s richest oil nation.
Now western leaders have all but admitted that the sole focus of the campaign is to kill Gaddafi, as air strikes pound targets around the beleaguered Libyan leader.

Asked if Gaddafi could be assassinated to force regime change, British defence secretary Liam Fox said that the Libyan leader was a “legitimate target,” adding, “That would potentially be a possibility,” entertaining a notion that was soon backed up by force as RAF warplanes reduced Gaddafi’s Tripoli compound to rubble last night after a massive air bombardment.

Fox later said that a “bunker-buster” attack on Gaddafi’s residence was also being considered.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister David Cameron have all gone on record to state that Gaddafi “must go,” “needs to go,” and has “lost his legitimacy”.

In addition, Salwa el-Deghali, of the national transitional council, called for, “More attacks on Gaddafi’s forces, and fast. We need these attacks until he is crushed.”

Does this sound like a mission to protect civilians or a mission to topple Gaddafi, especially given the fact that SAS commanders have been on the ground for weeks, again in violation of the UN resolution, directly supporting Libyan rebel armies?

The UN resolution that supposedly gave the air strikes their legal foundation does not authorize the use of military force to enact regime change, and yet that’s precisely what NATO and the United States is pursuing – the murder or removal of Gaddafi.

Once again we are reminded of the fact that the United Nations only abides by its own resolutions when it is convenient. The UN will flagrantly violate its own charter with relish if there is a pre-existing geopolitical agenda to accomplish.
International law codified under the UN prohibits state-sponsored assassination, except under conditions of warfare. By characterizing the attack on Libya as merely a “no fly zone,” and stopping short of declaring war on on the country, the UN along with the powers that signed the resolution, namely America, France, Britain and Italy, are in violation of their own resolution by targeting Gaddafi.

Indeed, killing Gaddafi would be a war crime because it clearly qualifies as an act of “treachery” under Article 23 of the Hague Convention IV of 1907. Even in times of declared war, assassinating a leader under false pretenses is illegal.

“A state that uses “treachery” to kill an enemy may be guilty of war crimes,” states the Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. “Article 23 of the Hague Convention IV of 1907 provides that “it is especially forbidden . . . to kill or wound treacherously, individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army.” Treachery is usually defined as a breach of confidence, such as an attack on an individual who believes that there is no need to fear the attacker.”

In addition, under U.S. law, employees of the United States are prohibited from engaging in assassination during peacetime. This law has of course been violated numerous times, most notably in 1986 when the Reagan administration attempted to kill Gaddafi by bombing army barracks where Libyan leader was known to be sleeping.

The attack on Libya is not only immoral, with the “humanitarian” pretext transparently a pack of lies, it is also completely unconstitutional having not been authorized by the U.S. Congress. As Francis Boyle, Professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, points out, “Without authorization by the United Nations Security Council and express authorization from the U.S. Congress pursuant to the terms of the War Powers Resolution, for President Obama to establish any type of so-called ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya would be illegal and unconstitutional.”

Above all, since the assault was launched under UN auspices with the presumed “legitimacy” of the international community, it directly violates the UN’s own charter in that the entire scope of the mission is about regime change, supporting one side in a civil war, and has nothing whatsoever to do with “protecting civilians”.



*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

Libya denies report of Gaddafi son’s death

Ynet
March 21, 2011

Media outlets affiliated with the Libyan opposition reported Monday that the son of Muammar Gaddafi, Khamis Gaddafi, was killed in a suicide attack on the Bab al-Azizia barracks in Tripoli.

According to the reports, which were denied by the Libyan government, on Saturday a Libyan Air Force pilot deliberately crashed his jet into the Gaddafi family compound.

Khamis was rushed to the intensive care unit of a Tripoli hospital, where he reportedly died from his wounds a few hours later, the reports said.

The Algerian newspaper Chorouk, citing a report on the Libyan opposite website Al-Manara, claimed that the pilot was ordered to bomb rebels in the Ajdabiya region. However, the report said, the plane suddenly changed course and headed towards the Bab al-Azizia barracks in the Libyan capital.

Full article here 

West in “medieval crusade” on Gaddafi, Putin says

Maria Golovnina and Michael Georgy
Reuters
March 21, 2011

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday a U.N. resolution authorizing military action in Libya resembled “medieval calls for crusades” after Western forces launched a second wave of air strikes.

As diplomatic tempers over the campaign flared, officials in Tripoli said a missile intended to kill Muammar Gaddafi had destroyed a building in his fortified compound, which was heavily bombed in 1986 by the Reagan administration.

“It was a barbaric bombing,” said government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, showing pieces of shrapnel that he said came from the missile. “This contradicts American and Western (statements) … that it is not their target to attack this place.”

There was no comment on the strike from attacking forces.

Full article here 

Neo-Cons Applaud Obama’s War, Call For Occupation Of Libya

Kristol and McCain brazenly admit “humanitarian mission” in Libya is about neo-colonial regime change

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, March 21, 2011

While applauding Barack Obama’s involvement of U.S. forces in air strikes, influential neo-con Bill Kristol told Fox News that America should go further than merely bombarding Libya and send in ground troops as “peacekeepers,” embroiling the bankrupt United States in yet another foreign occupation while enabling Muslim extremists fighting Gaddafi to rise to power.


Enthusiastically backing Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama’s decision to follow UN orders and launch air strikes against a sovereign nation with zero congressional approval, Bill Kristol, co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, the infamous group of neo-cons that called for the U.S. government to exploit a “new Pearl Harbor” before 9/11 as a means of aggressively expanding the U.S. empire and occupying the middle east, appeared on Fox News yesterday to make it clear that the number one aim of the mission in Libya was neo-colonial regime change.

Although the United Nations resolution that preceded the air strikes was focused around a “no fly zone” (unless of course you’re dropping bombs from America, British or French fighter jets), and it specifically forbade ground troops (unless of course you’re members of the British SAS), Kristol told host Chris Wallace that he “Would not rule out ultimately having to go in with peacekeeping and nation stabilizing forces. And I wouldn’t be surprised if we do that at the end of the day.”

While acknowledging the token pretext of ‘protecting civilians’, a justification that has now entered the realms of absurdity as an aggressive military assault quickly unfolds and the U.S. turns a blind eye to atrocities carried out by its allies in Bahrain and Yemen, Kristol made it brazenly clear what the “Odyssey Dawn” operation was really all about.

“Let’s talk about the mission,” host Wallace said. “You heard Admiral Mullen, earlier in the show, say his orders are clear: protect the civilians, don’t overthrow Gaddafi. That’s not the point. Is that a mistake? Can we live with Gaddafi in any sort of power? He can create a lot of trouble.”

“No, we cannot leave Gaddafi in power,” Kristol agreed. “And we won’t leave Gaddafi in power.”

“The immediate military mission, Admiral Mullen correctly described but the political goal is to remove Gaddafi and ultimately military assets will serve that political goal.”

“I hope that happens sooner rather than later here. We need to get rid of Gaddafi,” added Kristol.

In openly admitting that the whole affair is ultimately about nothing less than regime change, and in turn access to the richest oil reserves in Africa, Kristol inadvertently highlights the text of the UN resolution for what it is – a pack of lies.

Moreover, the man who represents the neo-con ideal of U.S. military domination of the entire Middle East and North Africa in the name of stopping Muslim extremism reveals himself to be the ultimate hypocrite and fraud. The rebels being backed by the United States to overthrow Gaddafi largely comprise of religious extremists who want to impose sharia law in Libya. This is why the air strikes have received the glowing approval of Libyan Al-Qaeda members.

The likes of Fox News, along with top neo-cons and deluded conservatives, the kind of people who furiously opposed the building of a mosque at ground zero in New York, are now rapaciously supportive of a military assault that will see Muslim extremists rise to power in Libya.

Kristol was joined by fellow neo-con John McCain in revealing that the no fly zone was merely the pretext on which the overthrow of Gaddafi would be initiated.



Kristol also cited Bill Clinton’s actions in Serbia as a template that Obama should follow.

“President Clinton ruled out ground forces in Kosovo. And finally, the threat of ground forces caused Miloševic to capitulate and we ended up sending in peacekeeping forces and we eventually got rid of Miloševic,” said Kristol.

Of course, just as we are witnessing now, Clinton’s depleted uranium holocaust in Serbia, the consequences of which led to thousands of cancer deaths, was manufactured for mass consumption by the helpful establishment media in a glossy package of deception based on a similar “humanitarian” hoax.

Clinton’s war was launched on the back of a fabricated controversy involving a Serbian relief camp that housed Bosnian refugees, which the media spun into being a Nazi-style “concentration camp” in which emaciated Bosnians were being imprisoned against their will.

The footage broadcast by the global media was contrived so as to make it look as if the Bosnians were inside a barbed-wire enclosure, when in fact it was the British TV news crew who were inside the enclosure and who were filming through the barbed-wire to the outside, where Bosnians had gathered. The “emaciated concentration camp victim” was in fact a man with a natural birth defect.

Publications like Time Magazine ran the hoax alongside headlines like Must It Go On?, and the public was told that air strikes were imperative to protect the civilian population. The subsequent NATO-led attacks on the country, aided by Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, with depleted uranium weapons caused civilian deaths and crippling long term health effects that dwarfed anything Slobodan Miloševic was accused of.

Barack Obama: We know what we're doing

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 

Politico.Com

March 21, 2011

 

SANTIAGO, Chile—President Barack Obama insisted Monday that the U.S. military’s mission in Libya is not confused, even though the aerial attacks unleashed against Col. Muammar Qadhafi’s regime two days ago aren’t intended to force him out of power.

“It’s very easy to square our military actions and our stated policies,” Obama told a press conference in the Chilean capitol, where he is at the midpoint of a five-day swing through Latin America.

Obama explained that the U.S. is acting as part of a broad international coalition that agreed Qadhafi — who answered a pro-democracy rebellion against him with brutal violence — must be stopped.

“Our military action is in support of an international mandate from the [United Nations] Security Council that specifically focuses on the humanitarian threat posed by Colonel Qadhafi to his people,” the American president said. “Not only was he carrying out murders of civilians, but he threatened more.”

“I also have stated that it is U.S. policy that Qadhafi needs to go,” Obama said, noting that a United Nations resolution last week authorizing force against Libya is based on humanitarian concerns, not regime change. “When it comes to our military action…we are going to make sure that we stick to that mandate.”

Read the rest of the article.

Libya: Largest Military Undertaking since the Invasion of Iraq. Towards a Protracted Military Operation

Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
March 21, 2011

Outright lies by the international media: Bombs and missiles are presented as an instrument  of peace and democratization…

This is not a humanitarian operation. The war on Libya opens up a new regional war theater.

There are three distinct war theaters in the Middle East Central Asian region. Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq.

What is unfolding is a fourth US-NATO War Theater in North Africa, with the risk of escalation.


These four war theaters are functionally related, they are part of an integrated US-NATO military agenda.

The bombing of Libya has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for several years as confirmed by former NATO commander General Wesley Clark.
Operation Odyssey Dawn is acknowledged as the “biggest Western military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq began exactly eight years ago.” (Russia: Stop ‘indiscriminate’ bombing of Libya – Taiwan News Online, March 19, 2011).

This war is part of the battle for oil. Libya is among the World’s largest oil economies with approximately 3.5% of global oil reserves, more than twice those of the US.

The underlying objective is to gain control over Libya’s oil and gas reserves under the disguise of a humanitarian intervention.

The geopolitical and economic implications of a US-NATO led military intervention directed against Libya are far-reaching.

“Operation Odyssey Dawn ” is part of  a broader military agenda in the Middle East and Central Asia which consists in gaining control and corporate ownership over more than sixty percent of the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas, including oil and gas pipeline routes.

With 46.5 billion barrels of proven reserves, (10 times those of Egypt), Libya is the largest oil economy in the African continent followed by Nigeria andAlgeria (Oil and Gas Journal). In contrast, US proven oil reserves are of the order of 20.6 billion barrels (December 2008) according to the Energy Information Administration.  U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves).

Read the rest of the article.

US says goal is to get Gaddafi to step down

US says goal is to get Gaddafi to step down

AFP
March 21, 2011

SANTIAGO – The United States Monday sent mixed messages about its objectives in Libya, as President Barack Obama said Moamer Kadhafi must go, but vowed US forces would stick to a narrower UN mandate.

"Our military action is in support of an international mandate from the Security Council that specifically focuses on the humanitarian threat posed by Colonel Kadhafi to his people," Obama told a press conference in Chile.

The missile and air strikes launched at the weekend were "in support of UN Security Resolution 1973, that specifically talks about humanitarian efforts, and we are going to make sure that we stick to that mandate."

But Obama stressed it was "US policy that Kadhafi needs to go" accusing the veteran leader who has ruled the north African country for more than four decades of murdering civilians as he tries to quell an opposition uprising.

Read the rest of the article.

'To my Dear Obama, our son', says Gaddafi, defending attack on rebels

'To my Dear Obama, our son', says Gaddafi, defending attack on rebels

Times Of India March 19, 2011   Calling Barack Obama as "our son", Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sent a message to the US President defending his decision to attack the rebels fighting to overthrow him. Gaddafi(68) also wrote a letter to the French and British leaders, and the UN Secretary General, saying the Security Council resolution was "void" and violated the UN charter, warning them that they would "regret" any intervention. "Libya is not for you, Libya is for the Libyans," he said. Details of Gaddafi's letters were released by the Libyan government spokesman at a news conference in Tripoli. Defending his decision to attack rebel cities, Gaddafi told Obama, "Al Qaeda is an armed organisation, passing through Algeria, Mauritania and Mali. What would you do if you found them controlling American cities with the power of weapons? What would you do, so I can follow your example." Trying to strike a personal note, Gaddafi prefaced his letter saying, "To our son, his excellency, Mr Baracka Hussein Obama. I have said to you before, that even if Libya and the United States of America enter into a war, god forbid, you will always remain a son. Your picture will not be changed." In his letter to Nikolas Sarkozy, David Cameron and Ban Ki Moon, Gaddafi said, "Libya is not yours, Libya is for the Libyans. The security council, their resolution is void because it is not according to the charter to interfere with the internal affairs of the country." You have no right. You will regret if you get involved in this, our country. We can never shoot a single bullet on our people, it is Al Qaeda organisation."