Wars, Rumors Of Wars, Skyrocketing Oil Prices And Global Economic Chaos – Why Is All Of This Happening?

The Economic Collapse
March 3, 2011

Did anyone out there anticipate that 2011 would be such a wild year?  The year is barely over two months old and we have already seen multiple civil wars erupt, rumors of more wars all over the mainstream media (potentially even including the United States), riots and revolutions breaking out all over the globe, oil prices soaring into the stratosphere and chaos on global financial markets.  So why is all of this happening?  Is all of this one big coincidence or is there a reason why we are witnessing such global chaos right now?  Is it just coincidence that revolutions have broken out in over a dozen countries in the Middle East all at the same time?  Is it just a coincidence that global prices for oil, food and precious metals are all skyrocketing?  Is it just a coincidence that world financial markets suddenly seem more vulnerable than at any time since 2008?  Looking at what is going on in the world right now, it is very tempting to use the phrase “a perfect storm” to describe it.  Unfortunately, this “perfect storm” is very likely to plunge the global economy into yet another financial collapse if it continues to get even worse.

After decades of relative stability, the Middle East has erupted in chaos in 2011.  In the post-World War 2 era, we have never seen a time when there have been so many major internal revolutions all at once.  All of these simultaneous revolutions are driving the price of oil rapidly upwards.

The price of West Texas crude is now over $102 a barrel and the price of Brent crude is now over $116 a barrel and if the chaos in the Middle East continues those numbers are likely to go a lot higher.

Meanwhile, gold has set a new all-time record this week and the price of silver is absolutely exploding.

In fact, just about every kind of “hard asset” that you can possibly name is going up in price.  Investors don’t like all of this instability and they are looking for safe places to put their money.

Unfortunately, the global situation looks like it may become even more heated.
The calls for military action against Libya are rapidly reaching a crescendo.

The U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, and many members of Congress are openly declaring that the U.S. and NATO should take unilateral action no matter what the UN ultimately decides.

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China “Attacks The Dollar” – Moves To Further Cement Renminbi Reserve Currency Status

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
March 3, 2011

In a surprising turn of events, today’s biggest piece of news received a mere two paragraph blurb on Reuters, and was thoroughly ignored by the broader media. An announcement appeared shortly after midnight on the website of the People’s Bank of China.

The statement, google translated as “Pragmatic and pioneering spirit to promote cross-border renminbi business cum on monitoring and analysis to a new level” is presented below:



Reuters provides a simple translation and summary of the announcement:

“China hopes to allow all exporters and importers to settle their cross-border trades in the yuan by this year, the central bank said on Wednesday, as part of plans to grow the currency’s international role. In a statement on its website www.pbc.gov.cn, the central bank said it would respond to overseas demand for the yuan to be used as a reserve currency. It added it would also allow the yuan to flow back into China more easily.”

To all those who claim that China is perfectly happy with the status quo, in which it is willing to peg the Renmibni to the Dollar in perpetuity, this may come as a rather unpleasant surprise, as it indicates that suddenly China is far more vocal about its intention to convert its currency to reserve status, and in the process make the dollar even more insignificant.

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If Martin Luther King, Jr. Were Alive Today, He Would Call For A New 9/11 Investigation

The Excavator
March 3, 2011

"There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal,” said Martin Luther King Jr in speech, “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam.” The speech is a revelation of the moral power of truth. If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today he would not hesitate in supporting a new investigation into the 9/11 attacks, which spawned the two evil wars in the Middle East.


King was the greatest kind of shepherd that a nation can be blessed with during a time of political and spiritual upheaval. He was an unwavering beacon of light. He was a moral giant in his own day, and he would be a moral giant if he were alive today.

His speech on Vietnam has stood the test of time. Nobody else spoke as eloquently for peace as he did, and with as much force and clear-sightedness. He said:

Now, let me make it clear in the beginning, that I see this war as an unjust, evil, and futile war. I preach to you today on the war in Vietnam because my conscience leaves me with no other choice. The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism.

He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. “Ye shall know the truth,” says Jesus, “and the truth shall set you free.” Now, I’ve chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing, as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we’re always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.

Imagine King saying these words about the war on terror, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He would’ve been the greatest voice in the war for knowledge and information because he knew how to cut through the military and government propaganda about war. He knew that the human spirit cannot move “without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world.” He was saying these amazing things not as a fringe pastor but as the chief moral voice in America.

He had the whole nation at his feet, and he was using his power to uplift his country, and all of mankind. I can’t believe the things that King said. No wonder the criminals in Washington killed him. We like to throw the word “hero” around a lot, but King deserves to be called a hero. If President, he could have totally transformed America, and thereby the entire world.

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Divide And Conquer: The Union Protests In Wisconsin And Ohio Are Increasing The Hate Between The Left And The Right

The American Dream
March 3, 2011

What is the perfect way to get the eyes of the American people off of the real economic problems that this country is facing?  Get them fighting with each other of course.  And what is one issue that is sure to get the left and the right screaming at each other like cats and dogs?  Unions.  The battle over collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin has been making headlines around the world for weeks and there are no signs that it is going to end any time soon.  In fact, Mordecai Lee, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says that it is “a battle to the death“.  The Democrats that have gone AWOL appear to be absolutely determined to stay away.  The protesters seem equally determined to keep on fighting.  Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker does not look like he plans to back down either.  Meanwhile, both sides are calling each other the most horrible names.  “Hitler”, “Stalin”, “Nazi” and “fascist” are just a few of the terms that are being thrown around by both sides.  What has been going on in Wisconsin has captured the imagination of the entire nation and it is creating even more hate between the left and the right in this country.

Unfortunately, as the economic pie in this nation continues to shrink, economic battles such as the one in Wisconsin are going to become quite common.

In fact, the war over public unions seems to be spreading.  The Ohio Senate has just passed a law that bans public employees from ever going on strike and that forbids them from negotiating on issues such as health care, sick time and pension benefits with the state government.

Needless to say, public employees and union workers in Ohio are not amused.
Several other states are now looking at legislation that would restrict the collective bargaining rights of public employees.  Battle lines are being drawn all over the nation.

If you only read conservative websites about all of this, you would be tempted to believe that all union activists are Satanic communists that hate everything that is true and good about America.

If you only read liberal websites about these protests, you would be tempted to believe that all conservatives are heartless Nazi-loving bastards that want to give all the money in America to the rich.

But this is what the establishment loves to do – they love to “divide and conquer” and have us fighting with each other like cats and dogs.

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Congress Must Reject the Welfare/Warfare State

Ron Paul
Infowars.com
March 2, 2011

During the past few weeks, Congress has been locked in a battle to pass a continuing resolution to fund government operations through September. Both supporters and opponents of the bill, HR 1, claim it is a serious attempt to reduce federal spending. However, an examination of the details of the bill call that claim into question. For one thing, the oft-cited assertion that HR 1 reduces spending by $99 billion is misleading. The $99 billion figure merely represents the amount that HR 1 reduces spending from the President’s proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget – not reductions in actual spending. Trying to claim credit for a reduction in spending based on cuts in proposed spending is like claiming someone is following a diet because he had only five slices of pizza when he intended to have 10 slices!


In fact, HR 1 only reduces real federal spending by $66 billion compared to last year’s budget. This may seem like a lot to the average American but in the context of an overwhelming trillion-dollar budget and a national debt that could exceed 100 percent of GNP in September, it is barely a drop in the bucket.


One reason that HR 1 does not cut spending enough is that too many fiscal conservatives continue to embrace the fallacy that we can balance the budget without reducing spending on militarism. Until Congress realizes the folly of spending trillions pretending to impose democracy on the world we will never be able to seriously reduce spending.

Congress must not only reject the warfare state, it must also reject the welfare state. HR 1 is more aggressive in ending domestic spending than foreign spending, and does zero out some objectionable federal programs such as AmeriCorps. However, HR 1 leaves most of the current functions of the federal government undisturbed. This bill thus continues the delusion that we can have a fiscally responsible and efficient welfare state.

The failure to even attempt to address the serious threat the welfare-warfare state poses to American liberty and prosperity is the main reason why supporters of limited government and individual liberty ultimately should find HR 1 unsatisfactory. Only a rejection of the view that Congress can run the economy, run our lives, and run the world will allow us to make the spending reductions necessary to avert a serious financial crisis. This does not mean we should not prioritize and discuss how to gradually transition away from the welfare state in a manner that does not harm those currently relying on these programs. However, we must go beyond balancing the budget to transitioning back to a free society, and that means eventually placing responsibility for social welfare back in the hands of individuals and private institutions.

Despite the overheated rhetoric heard during the debate, HR 1 is a diversion from the difficult task of restoring constitutional government and a free economy and society. It is time for Congress to get serious about cutting spending, not merely tinkering around the edges of the proposed budget and kicking the can down the road for future generations. If we fail to act decisively now, there will soon come a time when both our money and our capacity to borrow will run out. When that happens, our ability to negotiate and play political games with spending priorities will be over. To avoid real chaos, the time to start dealing with our bloated government budget is right now.

Reposted from Congressman Ron Paul’s House website.

Russian Military Claims Libya Air Strikes Did Not Happen

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
March 2, 2011

The Russian military claims that the supposed air strikes launched by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi against protesters last week did not happen, suggesting that the key event seized upon by the global media as a justification for a “humanitarian” military intervention was a contrived hoax.



According to Russia Today correspondent Irina Galushko, top officials from Russia’s Joint Chiefs of Staff monitoring images from space satellites have concluded that, “Some of the reports made by western media are not entirely corresponding to the pictures they are getting.”

Specifically, the supposed air strikes that took place on February 22 over Benghazi and Tripoli, which were widely reported by the likes of the BBC and Al Jazeera, were not registered by the Russian military chiefs studying the images coming in from the satellites.

The pictures show that, “nothing of that sort has been going on on the ground,” states Galushko, adding that there is also no evidence from footage shot by television cameras which suggests that any airborne attacks took place.

Supreme Court rules for anti-gay church over military funeral protests

CNN
March 2, 2011

A Kansas church that attracted nationwide attention for its angry, anti-gay protests at the funerals of U.S. military members has won its appeal at the Supreme Court, an issue testing the competing constitutional rights of free speech and privacy.

The justices, by an 8-1 vote, said Wednesday that members of Westboro Baptist Church had a right to promote what they call a broad-based message on public matters such as wars. The father of a fallen Marine had sued the small church, saying those protests amounted to targeted harassment and an intentional infliction of emotional distress.

“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

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World cheers as the CIA plunges Libya into chaos

David Rothscum
David Rothscum Reports
March 2, 2011

How was Libya doing under the rule of Gadaffi? How bad did the people have it? Were they oppressed as we now commonly accept as fact? Let us look at the facts for a moment.

Before the chaos erupted, Libya had a lower incarceration rate than the Czech republic. It ranked 61st. Libya had the lowest infant mortality rate of all of Africa. Libya had the highest life expectancy of all of Africa. Less than 5% of the population was undernourished. In response to the rising food prices around the world, the government of Libya abolished ALL taxes on food.
People in Libya were rich.

Libya had the highest gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita of all of Africa. The government took care to ensure that everyone in the country shared in the wealth. Libya had the highest Human Development Index of any country on the continent. The wealth was distributed equally. In Libya, a lower percentage of people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.

How does Libya get so rich?

The answer is oil. The country has a lot of oil, and does not allow foreign corporations to steal the resources while the population starves, unlike countries like Nigeria, a country that is basically run by Shell.

Like any country, Libya suffers from a government with corrupt bureaucrats that try to gain a bigger portion of the pie at the cost of everyone else. In response to this, Kadaffi called for the oil revenue to be distributed directly to the people, because in his opinion, the government was failing the people.

However, unlike the article claims, Gaddafi is not the president of Libya. In fact he holds no official position in the government. This is the big mistake that people make. They claim that Gaddafi rules over Libya when in fact he doesn’t, his position is more or less ceremonial. He should be compared to a founding father.

The true leader of Libya is an indirectly elected prime-minister. The current prime-minister is Baghdadi Mahmudi.

Calling Gaddafi the leader of Libya is comparable to calling Akihito the leader of Japan.

Contrary to what your media is sketching, opinions in Libya vary. Some people support Gaddafi but want Mahmudi out. Others want both out. Many just want to live their life in peace. However, effort is taken to sketch the appearance of a popular revolt against the supposed leader of Libya, Gaddafi, when in fact he is just the architect of Libya’s current political system, a mixture of pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islamic government.

Videos of Pro-Gaddafi protests are disappearing from Youtube as we speak.
“Pro Gaddafi Anti Baghdadi Mahmudi demonstrations” on  is gone. “Pro Gaddafi protests in front of Libyan embassy London” is gone. Youtube deletes any video containing gore normally, except when it’s from Libya.

Apparently more traumatizing to it’s viewers than chopped up bodies are Libyans who do not jump on the bandwagon and enter the streets to force Gaddafi out.

Are the protesters in Libya comparable to the protesters in Egypt and Tunisia?
Not at all.

The governments reaction is more violent, and obviously excessive violence is being used. However let us look for a moment at the actions of the protesters.

The building of the the general people’s congress, the parliament of Libya, was put on fire by angry protestors. This is comparable to protesters putting the United States Capitol on fire. Do you think that for even a moment the US government would sit idly by as protesters put the US capitol on fire?

The riots erupting now are not secular youth desiring change, or anything like we saw in Egypt and Tunisia.

A group calling itself “Islamic Emirate of Barka”, the former name of the North-Western part of Libya, has taken numerous hostages, and killed two policemen. This is not a recent development. On Friday, the 18th of February, the group stole 70 military vehicles after attacking a port and killing four soldiers. Unfortunately, a military colonel has joined the group and provided them with further weapons. The uprising started in the eastern city of Benghazi. The Italian foreign minister has raised his fears of an Islamic Emirate of Benghazi declaring itself independent.

So where does this sudden uprising come from?

Read the rest of the article, it is highly recommended. 

Blair cronies supported Gaddafi for his millions

Geoffrey Levy
Mail Online
March 2, 2011

The trouble with Fred Halliday was that he drank too much. He repeatedly warned colleagues at the London School of Economics, where he was professor of international relations, that taking money from Libya would come back to haunt them.

Fred spoke ten languages including several from the Middle East. He could see that the university where he had taught for 15 years was dealing with the Devil and risking its precious international reputation. He didn’t even want Saif Gaddafi to be a student there.

They didn’t listen to him. Not just because he drank, of course, but because they were greedy for Libyan money, a donation of a whopping £1.5million that Saif, now 38, made to the LSE a year after they had given him a PhD.

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Russia Warns on Libyan Intervention

Mail Online
March 2, 2011

Russia’s top diplomat has today dismissed plans to create a no-fly zone over Libya as embattled leader Moammar Gaddafi unleashed bombing raids, special forces and army troops in a desperate bid to retain power.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the idea of imposing limits on Libyan air space as ‘superfluous’ and said world powers must instead focus on fully using the sanctions that the UN Security Council approved over the weekend.

David Cameron and his counterparts in the U.S. and Australia had hoped that the military tactic – used successfully for years in northern Iraq – would prevent Gaddafi from bombing his own people.

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Announced U.S. Job Cuts Rose 20% From Year Ago

Alex Kowalski
Bloomberg
March 2, 2011

Employers in the U.S. announced more job cuts in February than in the same month last year, led by a surge at government agencies.

Planned firings increased 20 percent to 50,702 last month from February 2010, the first year-over-year gain since May 2009, according to a report today from Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Announcements at federal, state and local government offices almost tripled from last year.

“More job cuts at the federal level are expected in the months ahead as pressure mounts to cut costs and rein in the soaring national debt,” John A. Challenger, the outplacement company’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

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US warships enter Egypt’s Suez Canal

Press TV
March 2, 2011

The USS Kearsarge and the Ponce, two US amphibious assault ships, have entered the Suez Canal on their way to Libya as Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi continues his harsh crackdown on anti-government protesters, a canal official says.

The two US warships with hundreds of Marines on board headed towards Libya on Tuesday and entered Egypt’s Suez Canal on Wednesday, Reuters reported.


The ships were at the southern mouth of the canal, the official said, adding that they were expected to pass through by 3:30 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. local time.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious ship capable of carrying up to 2,000 Marines, and the USS Ponce assault ship will be passing through the Mediterranean shortly.

According to top US military officials, the Kearsarge warship is carrying 400 Marines from the United States.

The US, along with Britain and France, has also sent hundreds of Special Forces to Libya’s east. The forces are setting up bases in the cities of Benghazi and Tobruk.

The move comes against the backdrop of heated discussions over the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone on Libya, and a NATO-backed military intervention.

The US Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution urging the world to consider imposing a no-fly zone over Libya and condemning Gaddafi’s bloody crackdown on Libyan civilians.

Lawmakers approved the measure, which “applauds” demonstrators demanding democratic reforms and “strongly condemns” Gaddafi’s response.

The symbolic resolution calls on Gaddafi “to desist from further violence, recognize the Libyan people’s demand for democratic change, resign his position and permit a peaceful transition to democracy.”

Gaddafi’s bloody repression of anti-government protesters have claimed the lives of thousands of people over the past 16 days as the death toll is expected to rise as Gaddafi continues his bloody crackdown against the opposition.

Oil surges after Libya airstrike near oil terminal

Reuters
March 2, 2011

Oil prices jumped to near 2-1/2 year highs on Wednesday after an airstrike near Libya’s oil infrastructure kept the market braced for a prolonged disruption from the OPEC nation and worried unrest might spread to other regional producers.

Fresh airstrikes hit Brega, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from a Libyan oil terminal, after embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi launched a land and air offensive to retake territory in Libya’s east.

The reprisal sparked calls from rebels for foreign air strikes on African mercenaries they said were helping him stay in power.

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The Perfidy of Government: Evidence v. Denial

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
March 2, 2011

This essay is about three recent books that explain how we lost our economy, the Constitution and our civil liberties, and how peace lost out to war.

Matt Taibbi is the best — certainly the most entertaining — financial/political reporter in the country. There is no better book than Griftopia (2010) to which to turn to understand how stupidity, greed, and criminality, spread evenly among policymakers and Wall Street, created the financial crisis that has left Americans overburdened with both private and public debt. Taibbi walks the reader through the fraudulent financial instruments that littered the American, British, and European financial communities with toxic waste. He has figured it all out, and what in other hands might be an arcane account for MBAs is, in Taibbi’s hands, a highly readable and entertaining story.


For the first 65 pages, Taibbi entertains the reader with the inability of the public and politicians to focus on any reality.  The financial story begins on page 65 with Fed chairman Alan Greenspan undermining the Glass-Steagall Act leading to its repeal by three political stooges, Gramm-Leach-Bliley. This set the stage for the banksters to leverage debt upon debt until the house of cards collapsed. When Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, attempted to do her regulatory job and regulate derivatives, the Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Securities and Exchange Commission got her bounced out of office. To make certain that no other regulator could protect the financial system and its participants from what was coming, Congress deregulated the derivatives markets by passing the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

As an Ayn Randian mentality of a self-regulating private sector crowded out prudence, the media cheered. Taibbi captures the era in a sentence: “In was in the immediate wake of all these historically disastrous moves — printing 1.7 trillion new dollars in the middle of a massive stock bubble, dismantling the Glass-Steagall Act, deregulating the derivatives market, blowing off his regulatory authority in the middle of an era of rampant fraud — that Greenspan was upheld by the mainstream financial and political press as a hero of almost Caesarian nature. In February 1999, Time magazine put him on the cover.”

Mortgage securitization allows lenders such as banks to issue mortgages that can be sold to third parties. Instead of making money from the interest from mortgages in its portfolio, the bank issues mortgages for a fee and sells the mortgages. The mortgages are then combined with mortgages sold by other lenders and resold to investors. This development resulted in lenders being less interested in the credit-worthiness of borrowers.

U.S. and Britain Prepare to Impose No-fly Over Libya

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 2, 2011

Democrat Senator John Kerry, a Skull and Bones member, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has attended Bilderberg meetings, are in agreement – the United States and its globalist partners will work to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and pitch Libya into chaos.

The globalists are working to re-engineer the entire region. Libya is of particular interest because it is the wealthiest nation in Africa and has a lot of easily refined sweet crude. Gaddafi has to go not so much because he is a dictator – it can be argued his role in Libya is at best symbolic (see World cheers as the CIA plunges Libya into chaos) – but because he spouts pan-Arab nationalism repugnant to international banksters.

The bankers are also horrified by Libya’s 2009 decision to implement Islamic banking. Under the system, interest is strictly prohibited, a concept that is anathema to the globalist banking elite.

“The entire region is changing and a strong and strategic American response will be essential,” Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Meanwhile, the Senate has unanimously passed a resolution calling for a no-fly zone over Libya. Once again, the government of the United States reveals it is nothing but a tool for the globalists and that it is determined to unleash the dogs of war on officially designated enemies under the putrid cover of insincere humanitarianism.

The Senate Armed Services Committee said all options, including the military option, should be on the table.

“There is a bipartisan consensus building to provide assistance to liberated areas of Libya and to work with our allies to enforce a no-fly zone,” declared Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who sponsored the resolution
Meanwhile, the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce – loaded with hundreds of marines, helicopters and tons of military equipment – have passed through the Suez Canal and have reached the Mediterranean. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, previously engaged in pirate-hunting off the coast of Somalia, is now steaming to the mouth of the Suez Canal in the Red Sea.

Britain is reported to have parked a naval destroyer and a frigate off the coast of Libya. “I think there are some very immediate dangers of what Colonel Gaddafi could do to his own people and we should be planning now to think what we can do to try to stop that,” said British PM David Cameron.

Germany and France have enthusiastically voiced their support for a no-fly zone. Italy – the former colonial power in Libya – has agreed the open its bases for possible action against the African country.

Secretry of Defense Gates admits that establishing a no-fly zone over Libya will entail a military attack on the country. Gates also hinted more warships and warplanes will likely be sent in the weeks ahead. He said imposing a no-fly zone for Libya “also requires more airplanes than you can find on a single aircraft carrier, so it is a big operation in a big country.”

“The tough issues about how and whether there would be any intervention to assist those who are opposing Libya is very controversial within Libya and within the Arab community,” Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “So we are working closely with our partners and allies to try to see what we can do and we are engaged in very active consideration of all the different options that are available.”

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has characterized the US-UK push to invade Libya as an unabashed effort to capture the nation’s oil resources.


“The Middle East and Africa have been viewed by the west as sources of oil and used as pawns in oil wars for decades,” Erdogan said. “Any type of sanctions or intervention that would punish the Libyan people is unacceptable and would cause massive problems.”

New Hampshire Moves to Criminalize TSA Grope-down Procedures

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 2, 2011

New Hampshire may soon criminalize the TSA’s intrusive pat-downs and naked body porno scanners as sexual assault.

Debate has moved forward on HB628-FN, a bill that would make “the touching or viewing with a technological device of a person’s breasts or genitals by a government security agent without probable cause a sexual assault,” according to WMUR in Manchester.



“Let’s put their name on the sex offender registry, and maybe that will tell them New Hampshire means business,” said bill co-sponsor Rep. Andrew Manuse, R-Derry.

“That is a crime in this state, and we should charge them every single time,” added bill co-sponsor Rep. George Lambert, R-Litchfield.

TSA officials did not comment on the legislation. They insist so-called airport security checkpoints are under federal jurisdiction. “We have to understand that if things need to be changed, they have to be done at the federal level, not the state level,” said Democrat Rep. Laura Pantelakos.

In November, a California district attorney said he would charge TSA agents with sexual assault if they conducted the new pat-down procedures in his state.

“TSA does not have any special immunity from everybody else,” said Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County’s chief deputy district attorney. “If an employee of TSA inappropriately touches the privates of another person, and they do so with a sexual or lewd intent, then that’s either a misdemeanor (if it’s over the clothing) or a felony crime (possible when touching the skin).”

Docs Reveal TSA Plan To Body-Scan Pedestrians, Train Passengers

Andy Greenberg
Forbes
Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Giving Transportation Security Administration agents a peek under your clothes may soon be a practice that goes well beyond airport checkpoints. Newly uncovered documents show that as early as 2006, the Department of Homeland Security has been planning pilot programs to deploy mobile scanning units that can be set up at public events and in train stations, along with mobile x-ray vans capable of scanning pedestrians on city streets.

The non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Wednesday published documents it obtained from the Department of Homeland Security showing that from 2006 to 2008 the agency planned a study of of new anti-terrorism technologies that EPIC believes raise serious privacy concerns.

The projects range from what the DHS describes as “a walk through x-ray screening system that could be deployed at entrances to special events or other points of interest” to “covert inspection of moving subjects” employing the same backscatter imaging technology currently used in American airports.

The 173-page collection of contracts and reports, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request, includes contracts with Siemens Corporations, Northeastern University, and Rapiscan Systems. The study was expected to cost more than $3.5 million.

One project allocated to Northeastern University and Siemens would mount backscatter x-ray scanners and video cameras on roving vans, along with other cameras on buildings and utility poles, to monitor groups of pedestrians and assess what they carried. In another program, the researchers were asked to develop a system of long range x-ray scanning to determine what metal objects an individual might have on his or her body at distances up to thirty feet.

“This would allow them to take these technologies out of the airport and into other contexts like public streets, special events and ground transit,” says Ginger McCall, an attorney with EPIC. “It’s a clear violation of the fourth amendment that’s very invasive, not necessarily effective, and poses all the same radiation risks as the airport scans.”

Full story here.

Epic Body Scan Foia Docs Found Here

Epic Body Scan Foia Docs Feb 2011[1]    

Gaddafi claims: ‘West only wants our oil’

Daily Mail
Wednesday, March 2, 2011

As Libya teeters on the brink of full-scale civil war Colonel Gaddafi today said there was a conspiracy to get of Libyan oil as he again pledged to fight to the last.

‘There is a conspiracy to control the Libyan oil and to control the Libyan land, to colonise Libya once again,’ he said in a televised speech before a loyal audience.


‘This is impossible, impossible. We will fight until the last man and last woman to defend Libya from east to west, north to south,’ Gaddafi told his supporters who punctuated the address with cheers of support and declarations of loyalty.

The Libyan leader said he was willing to discuss constitutional and legal change without arms or chaos and was ready to talk with Al Qaeda – who he blamed for the turmoil – if they had demands.


Full story here.

Oil surges after Libya airstrike near oil terminal

Reuters
Wednesday, March 2, 2011

(Reuters) – Oil prices jumped to near 2-1/2 year highs on Wednesday after an airstrike near Libya’s oil infrastructure kept the market braced for a prolonged disruption from the OPEC nation and worried unrest might spread to other regional producers.

Fresh airstrikes hit Brega, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from a Libyan oil terminal, after embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi launched a land and air offensive to retake territory in Libya’s east.

The reprisal sparked calls from rebels for foreign air strikes on African mercenaries they said were helping him stay in power.

“It looks like an attack fairly close to what is one of Libya’s largest storage and export terminals,” said Andy Lebow, trader at MF Global in New York.

Full story here.

TSA Criminality Epidemic: “Behavioral Detection” Officer Faces Charges Of Helping Drug Dealers Through Security

Everyone else must have their insides scanned

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
March 2, 2011

Yet another TSA officer has been arrested on suspicion of abusing her position and engaging in illegal activity, adding to a long history of cases indicating that TSA workers are prone to criminal behavior.

“Behavioral detection” officer Minnetta Walker was arrested Tuesday by federal agents at Buffalo Niagara International Airport on charges that she provided information to suspected drug traffickers and helped them get past security checkpoints with minimum scrutiny, reports The Buffalo News.

Investigators say that Walker helped traffickers move large amounts of cash through the airport, escorting them through security lines, directing them away from the naked body scanners and patdown security lines, and ensuring their luggage bypassed screening areas.

According to the Affidavit in support of the Complaint, Walker also allowed at least one person to fly under a false identity and even waited with others at the aircraft departure gate, ensuring that they were able to avoid random secondary screening.

She also did this while off duty, but still in her TSA uniform.



Walker faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or both for “conspiring to defraud the United States by interfering with and obstructing security measures”, and faces a further one year prison sentence, a fine of $100,000, or both for “aiding and abetting another individual in entering an aircraft and airport area in violation of federal security requirements”.

Walker has pleaded not guilty. The TSA has refused to comment on the case.

Barbour: Obama’s policy ‘is to drive up energy prices’

Peter Hamby
CNN
Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Washington (CNN) – With price of gasoline rising for the eighth consecutive day, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour accused the Obama administration of hiking energy costs in an effort to promote alternative fuels.

“In 2008, four dollar gasoline brought my state to its knees, before Wall Street melted down, and we have blown through three dollars a gallon on our way to four,” Barbour, a Republican who is seriously considering a White House bid, said Wednesday in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We don’t need that where I am.”

“But this administration’s policies have been designed to drive up the cost of energy in the name of reducing pollution, in the name of making very expensive alternative fuels more economically competitive,” he said.

As evidence, Barbour referenced a 2008 comment by Obama’s Energy Secretary, Steven Chu. At the time, Chu was still director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. He told the Wall Street Journal that “somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe” in order to force consumers to be more fuel-efficient.

Full story here.

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Yemeni President Accuses U.S., Israel of Fomenting Unrest

Radio Free Europe
March 1, 2011

Huge crowds poured onto the streets of the Yemeni capital Sanaa today in what the opposition hailed as the biggest protest yet against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s three-decade rule.

Saleh’s opponents massed in streets leading to a square near Sanaa University, where students and pro-democracy demonstrators have been camped for more than a week.

The demonstration came as Saleh accused Israel of financing and plotting the protests in his country and other Arab states, and criticized U.S. President Barack Obama for expressing support for the protesters.

Read entire article

Perimeter Security and the Future of North American Integration

Dana Gabriel
Infowars.com
March 1, 2011

Out of the ashes of the defunct Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the U.S. has pursued simultaneous bilateral agendas with both Canada and Mexico, in an effort to further deepen North American economic and security integration. While the NAFTA framework remains intact, a recent announcement by Canada and the U.S. to work towards a trade and security perimeter agreement without Mexico, has some questioning the future of the whole trilateral process.

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon recently addressed the Council on Foreign Relations where he emphasized Canada-U.S. bilateral achievements and called for greater integration between the two countries. In his speech, Minister Cannon praised the February 4, Beyond the Border declaration issued by President Obama and Prime Minister Harper as, “a bold new step, intended to bring our economic competitiveness and our security perimeter to a higher level of joint commitment.” In regards to shared engagement in the hemisphere, he added, “Our Americas strategy is focused on promoting prosperity, democracy and security.” Cannon acknowledged, “We are working with the U.S. to help Mexico strengthen its police forces and judicial institutions to combat transnational, organized crime.” He also added, “The problems on the U.S. southern border are real but fundamentally different from those on your northern border.” Some have blamed the failure of the SPP on the trilateral approach and believe that it also prevented more meaningful Canada-U.S. bilateralism in areas of security, trade and energy.


In a recent article, Duncan Wood gives some reasons for Mexico being left out of Canada-U.S. negotiations on a perimeter security arrangement. He points to its worsening security situation, differences in development from its NAFTA partners, immigration issues, along with Canada’s reluctance to address border issues in a trilateral manner. Duncan also questioned, “What, then, does the perimeter security deal mean for the future of North American relations?

I would venture that it marks the official beginning of a two-speed reality in the NAFTA region, with Mexico very much moving on the slower track. Canada will benefit from its deal with the US through closer ties.” Canada does hope to further strengthen its strategic relationship with the U.S. and increase its influence in Washington. The Economist sums up the current state of North American integration, “The main obstacle to trilateral co-operation is that Canada and Mexico are much more interested in their relations with the United States than they are in each other.” In many ways the Canada-U.S. bilateral border security agenda is being replicated through U.S.-Mexico initiatives, but with some variations that reflect the dynamics of the southern border.

Increasingly, security issues are further shaping continental integration. The Merida Initiative has provided a platform to deepen U.S.-Mexico relations. This has enabled the U.S. to assume more control over Mexican security priorities and intelligence operations.

A U.S. State Department fact sheet entitled United States-Mexico Security Partnership: Progress and Impact proclaimed how both, “governments have built on the foundations of the Merida Initiative to establish four strategic areas to guide our cooperation and institutionalize our partnership: disrupt organized criminal groups; strengthen institutions; create a 21st century border; and build strong and resilient communities.”

Libya no-fly zone would require bombing raids

AFP
March 1, 2011

Enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya would first require bombing the north African nation’s air defense systems, top US commander General James Mattis warned Tuesday.

A no-fly zone would require removing “the air defense capability first,” Mattis, the head of Central Command, told a Senate hearing.

“It would be a military operation,” the general said.

The United States and its allies are weighing possible military action, including a no-fly zone, to stop Libya’s Moamer Kadhafi from using his forces to crush mounting opposition.

Read entire article

Call for boys to get HPV vaccine

NHS Choices
March 1, 2011

The Daily Mirror has reported that “experts are calling for boys to be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus (HPV) after a study has found that 50% of men are infected with the virus”. Some strains of HPV have been linked to cancers, including cervical cancer in women and cancers of the penis, oral cavity and anus. Some strains also cause genital warts in males and females.

The news is based on an international study which checked 1,159 men for the virus every six months for over two years. The research in Brazilian, Mexican and American adults looked at rates of new infections and how quickly the men cleared their infections. It reportedly found that each year 6% of men acquire the cancer-causing strains of HPV. It also found that having a higher number of female and male sexual partners was linked to a higher risk of infection.

Read entire article

Documentary exposes fluoride truth: Industrial waste passed off as medicine

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
March 1, 2011

Water fluoridation around the world is achieved through the purchase of chemically contaminated toxic waste chemicals from China which are then labeled “fluoride” and dumped into public water supplies in local cities and towns. That’s the conclusion of a shocking new mini documentary released today by the Consumer Wellness Center (www.ConsumerWellness.org).

The video is now available for viewing on NaturalNews.TV:

http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=42652…
 
The 12-minute video documents the history of fluoride and how this toxic chemical is produced as an industrial byproduct of the phosphate mining industry. Decades ago, fluoride used to be released into the air through the smokestacks of phosphate mining operations, but this resulted in the widespread death of cattle and plants on nearby farms and ranches. To stop the deaths, phosphate mining companies installed “wet scrubbers” that captured the toxic fluoride chemical vapors.

While consumers might think that deadly fluoride chemicals captured in these wet scrubbers are disposed of as hazardous industrial waste, the surprising truth is that they are sold to cities and towns as “fluoride” to be dumped into the local water supply where they are consumed by adults and children. This is all being done to “prevent cavities” — a medical claim that technically turns fluoride into an unapproved drug being used in an illegal mass medication scheme.

The FDA has never approved fluoride as a drug, and no recipient of fluoride has ever been medically evaluate for their “need” for the drug.

The full story of fluoride is revealed in The Fluoride Deception, available for viewing at the Consumer Wellness Center website: www.ConsumerWellness.org

The making of The Fluoride Deception

The video was created and narrated by consumer health advocate Mike Adams, the executive director of the CWC. Adams is best known for creating the “Blueberry Deception” documentary which revealed many name-brand breakfast cereals that claim to be made with blueberries are actually made with petrochemicals and artificial colors (and contain no blueberries at all).

That video is also available at the CWC website.

“Consumers have a right to know what’s in their water,” Adams explained.

Security Theatre Creep: Full Strength X-Ray Body Scanners Touted For Airports

Trials begin for devices that can scan your insides, deep penetrating radiation scans cause 15,000 deaths per year

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
March 1, 2011

The next generation of body scanners to be rolled out in airports will literally be able to see inside the human body, as security personnel gear up to trial machines that use deep penetrating radiation, the same kind hospitals use to examine internal organs and bones.

Australian airports are set to begin using the devices should legislation before Federal Parliament be passed, enabling customs officers to use technology previously only operated by doctors in controlled conditions.

The justification for the technology is to crack down on suspected drug smugglers who swallow illegal substances to evade airport security. However, the notion of placing the technology along airport security lines paves the way for its general use, particularly in light of the recent security theatre explosion we have seen in airports over the last eighteen months.

The current crop of naked body scanners being used by the TSA and other transport security personnel around the globe use either Millimeter-wave or BackScatter radiation. These devices render clothing and organic materials translucent, providing an image of what is concealed underneath, which is why they have caused such controversy.

The radiation fired from those scanners does not penetrate beyond the tissue under the skin, nevertheless there have been significant and legitimate fears expressed by experts and scientists over the safety of such devices, as far as both the operator and the traveler are concerned.

The force generated from tetrahertz waves used by the millimeter-wave scanners is small but, according to scientists, the waves can ‘unzip’ or tear apart double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the DNA that could interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication.

Despite further warnings from scientists that the scanners will cause cancer in some travelers, it seems our governments are ready to push even further and use even more potentially lethal technology, under the guise of security.
Of course, there is a very good reason why internal X-ray scans are only legally permitted to be carried out by a doctor at a hospital or surgery – because they are extremely hazardous and can cause detrimental health effects to those exposed to them.

Radiography and Tomography scanners fire deep penetrating ionizing x-rays. The most recent studies estimated that CT scanners cause 29,000 cancers and kill nearly 15,000 Americans every year. Imagine how that number would balloon if such technology were installed in airports and used everyday on millions of healthy people, as if they were routine metal detectors.

TSA Lies To Justify Illegal Train Station Grope-Down

Passengers were forced to enter train station by TSA goons who swarmed them on platform

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The TSA has been caught in yet another act of deception after claiming that passengers who were subjected to an invasive pat down and bag search after getting off an Amtrak train in Savannah, Georgia earlier this month did not have to enter the station, when in fact according to firefighter Brian Gamble, TSA agents swarmed the platform as soon as passengers stepped off the train and ordered them inside the building.



“(Lt. Brian) Gamble, who also works part-time as a travel agent, tells AOL Travel News he was bringing a small group that included other firefighters and policemen to Savannah for a Valentine’s Day getaway. They were among 30 or 40 people getting off the train when he says TSA officers ordered everyone into the terminal.”

“They sent us all into a roped-off holding area and said ‘Y’all are going to be searched,’” Gamble says. “We were getting off the train. This didn’t make sense.”

In a lengthier personal account of the incident, Gamble, a firefighter, makes it clear that the train passengers were given no option to leave the station.

“When we got off in Savannah, there were TSA agents out on the platform that told us to go inside to get our (checked) luggage. So we were part of about 20 people that wondered inside. As soon as we went inside the door, there were about 14 TSA agents waiting and they ushered us into a roped off holding area.

They stated we were all being searched, as well as our luggage. We told them we just got OFF the train. They said they didn’t care, that if we entered the building, we were subject to search. We told them we didn’t want to enter the building, that THEY told us to. (BTW our luggage was never inside – it was waiting for us on the train platform).”

After forcing women to pull up their shirts, the TSA agents proceeded to pat down two young boys, as seen in the video clip. When the firefighter started to complain he was told by a TSA supervisor, “calm down. This is for your own security”.

Most Americans Strongly Oppose U.S. Military Action in Libya

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 1, 2011

According to Rasmussen, a large majority of Americans agree with the common sense of George Washington. During his farewell address, the first president of the United States said the nation should beware of foreign entanglements.

On February 23, Rasmussen reported that 67% of Americans strongly believe the United States should stay out of Libya and the Middle East.



The globalists, their hand-picked government in the district of criminals, and the Pentagon are not listening. They have dispatched the USS Enterprise and other warships to Libya. The Enterprise was conveniently close, having squandered millions of tax payer dollars confronting ragtag pirates off the coast of Somalia. The Pentagon will not confirm one way or the other if it has instructions to set-up a no-fly zone and begin bombing the North African nation.
According to Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, the U.S. military is moving ships closer to Libya “in case they are needed.”

The Pentagon is not about to go it alone in Libya. It will act in concert with NATO. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice – mentor of Secretary of State Madeline Albright (who declared killing 500,000 Iraqi children was acceptable), CFR and Ford Foundation Brookings member – said “the international community is not going to tolerate the slaughter of innocents.”

Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash

Comment: Islamic militants, China, Russia, Iran, Hugo Chavez, Santa Claus, The tooth fairy, Barney the purple dinosaur – anyone and everyone is to blame, according to the Pentagon, except for the real financial terrorists still running the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury.

Bill Gertz
The Washington Times
March 1, 2011

Evidence outlined in a Pentagon contractor report suggests that financial subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile nations, contributed to the 2008 economic crash by covertly using vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.

The unclassified 2009 report “Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses” by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, states that “a three-phased attack was planned and is in the process against the United States economy.”

While economic analysts and a final report from the federal government’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blame the crash on such economic factors as high-risk mortgage lending practices and poor federal regulation and supervision, the Pentagon contractor adds a new element: “outside forces,” a factor the commission did not examine.

“There is sufficient justification to question whether outside forces triggered, capitalized upon or magnified the economic difficulties of 2008,” the report says, explaining that those domestic economic factors would have caused a “normal downturn” but not the “near collapse” of the global economic system that took place.

Suspects include financial enemies in Middle Eastern states, Islamic terrorists, hostile members of the Chinese military, or government and organized crime groups in Russia, Venezuela or Iran. Chinese military officials publicly have suggested using economic warfare against the U.S.

Full article here

Gaddafi loyalists fail to retake territory in six-hour battle with rebels

Leila Fadel and Liz Sly
Washington Post
March 1, 2011

Libyan soldiers and paramilitaries loyal to Moammar Gaddafi attempted Tuesday to retake territory that has been seized by rebels, but neither side appeared to gain ground, according to accounts of the fighting from residents and officials with the opposition movement.

In a six-hour battle, rebels armed with tanks, anti aircraft guns and automatic weapons repelled an overnight attack by government troops using the same weapons in the town of Zawiya, 30 miles west of Tripoli, the Associated Press reported.

But the battle for control of the North African country seemed to be settling into a stalemate, with pro-Gaddafi forces unable to recapture any of the cities or territory held by the opposition, despite episodic attacks that included the use of helicopters and airplanes, residents and opposition officials said. The strikes demonstrated that the regime remained able to fight back with potentially lethal weaponry.

At the same time, residents opposed to Gaddafi in the capital, Tripoli, have so far been unable to seize control of his stronghold and achieve their ultimate goal of ousting him from power — a fact made evident by Gaddafi’s hosting of U.S. and U.K. reporters at a seaside restaurant in the capital.

Full article here

Ron Paul 2012: Tea Partiers Choose Congressman Over Sarah Palin For Presidential Bid

Paul is the only Republican ticket that can effectively challenge Obama

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Feb 28, 2011

Congressman Ron Paul has topped a Tea Party presidential straw poll, beating Sarah Palin as the favourite to run against Barack Obama in 2012.

The former Alaska governor was placed a distant third, behind Paul and Georgia businessman Herman Cain in the poll of close to 1,600 members of the Tea Party Patriots grassroots activist group.

The Congressman romped home with 581 votes, while Cain received 256 votes.
Palin scored just 149 votes, almost four times less than Ron Paul, and was almost beaten into fourth place by Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who was shy of Palin by just 6 votes.

“Mr. Cain and Rep. Paul’s positions resonated with Tea Party Patriots this weekend,” said Mark Meckler, the Tea Party Patriots’ national coordinator.
The poll was conducted jointly online and in house at the groups’ convention in Phoenix this past weekend.

The result echoes that of other recent surveys, including the CPAC straw poll, which have shown that Ron Paul has a greater chance of beating Obama than Sarah Palin does. A string of victories in the polls, as well as a huge injection of $700,000 of support in the form of a recent “moneybomb” on behalf of supporters, is sure to influence Paul’s impending decision of whether to embark on a third presidential campaign.

The former Governor of Alaska trails Obama by 11 per cent in current approval ratings, whereas Paul only trails the President by 9 per cent. Once Paul is able to mobilize his hugely effective grass roots base, which outstrips anything the likes of Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich or Mike Huckabee can call upon, a 9 point deficit is far from insurmountable.

Report: US Special Forces Arrive In Libya

Military overthrow of Gaddafi nears as US war machine backs rebels

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, March 1, 2011

US Special Forces have reportedly landed in Libya to train anti-Gaddafi rebels as a western-backed coup d’état in the oil-rich nation nears, with British and French “defense advisors” also arriving to set up training bases in the rebel-controlled eastern region of the country.

According to a report in the Pakistan Observer, hundreds of special forces personnel from the US, Britain and France arrived on February 23 and 24 in “American and French warships and small naval boats off Libyan ports of Benghazi and Tobruk.”

The article states that the report was confirmed by a Libyan diplomat in the region, who said that “The three Western states have landed their special forces troops in Cyrinacia and are now setting up their bases and training centres,” in a bid to bolster rebel forces resisting Gaddafi’s militia in the surrounding region.

“The Western forces are reportedly preparing to set-up training bases for local militias set-up by the rebel forces for an effective control of the oil-rich region and counter any push by pro-Qaddafi forces from Tripoli,” states the report.

In addition, efforts to “neutralize” the Libyan Air Force are underway in a bid to stymie Gaddafi’s ability to rule from Tripoli if he manages to remain in power.

The US Navy has also confirmed that the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, which had previously been on pirate-hunting duty off the coast of Somalia, is now steaming towards Libya as tensions rise.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly admitted for the first time yesterday that the United States was preparing to back anti-government rebels, despite Hafiz Ghoga, the spokesman for the newly formed National Libyan Council in the rebel controlled eastern city of Benghazi, warning that any “foreign intervention” would not be welcome.

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