The West's hypocrisy and oil-greed are coming home to roost with a vengeance in Libya as the Arab Spring in that country turns into a nightmarish winter characterized by armed gangs, economic collapse, a decline in services by an incompetent government and increasing political domination by radical Islamists.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq, riding a pack of lies and monstrous manipulation of the entire U.S. elite, major news services, academics, and politicians from both "sides" of the spectrum lined up in a shameful cheerleading line and off they went to war. It was one of the most shameful chapters in the long history of shameful acts of U.S. imperial foreign policy.

It actually didn't take too long for dissenting voices to come out of the woodwork. The lies were exposed, the liars identified, the manipulation denounced.

But watching the sorry spectacle of media coverage of the tragic farce unfolding around Libya, one has to wonder if anyone will ever expose the lies and hubris that have run throughout this faux Arab spring.

NATO members, including Canada, are continuing their massive bombing campaign against Libya in a war that may just break the record for the casual breaking of international law, and for lying about the motives for the war.

There is no mandate to engage in "regime change," yet everyone, including the Harper government, openly admits that that is, in fact, what they are doing. Canada has stated that only the removal of Gaddafi will satisfy NATO. Not the United Nations -- which gave a mandate to protect civilians from the Libyan government's attacks -- but NATO, that alliance whose mandate is supposed to be the mutual self defence of nations of the north Atlantic.