Libya 14

10 bipartisani members of Congress are suing Obama for violating War Powers Act grtv

War Powers Act written in 1973, 

Kucinich asks Reaganaut defending Obama:

             If there were 2000 bombing sorties flown over America by a foreign nation, would it be an act of war?

Obama's unhealthy addiction to warfiteering  Tariq Ali for grtv

Shikha Dalmia has posted a new blog on The Real News Network claiming that "Humanitarian concerns are driving America's involvement in Libya".

Shikha Dalmia wrote:

Humanitarian considerations might not solely inform this administration's Mideast policy, but they are an important part of the mix. Had Libya been of more economic, strategic or security importance like Syria, Bahrain, and Egypt, we might not have indulged them. But it is not, so there is little reason not to. In other words, "humanitarian outcomes" are not the "byproduct" of our intervention in Libya, they are the core reason we are there even if this hurts our oil prospects.

The antiwar camp likes the greed rationale because it wants to blame America's seemingly endless quest for war on the inherent logic of its system. But the truth is that the Bush administration had its own reasons for engaging in optional wars and the Obama administration has its own. To pin every war on the greed of corporate capitalism has the virtue of parsimony, but it is false. Greed is arguably more a force for timidity than belligerence in the world.

It might be disconcerting that the road to global hell is being paved not by our greed but our good intentions. But building a solid case against war will require us to admit just that. We don't serve the cause of peace in Libya or elsewhere by making this all about oil all the time.

This is disconcerting to say the least because it was posted on The Real News Network, which is usually a very progressive broadcast journalism website (run by former CBC Counterspin producer Paul Jay). I've seen Ms. Dalmia interviewed on several TRNN videos before, most notably regarding the US "Obamacare" bill, in which she debated with a leader in the nursing community over the benefits of a market-model of healthcare. She continuously dodged the nurse's question of whether health care is a human right or a commodity.

This blog just flies in the face of common logic. Gaddafi had been intending for quite some time to nationalize oil in Libya, and now the rebel leadership is forging deals for the export of Libyan crude. What is humanitarian about deeper bombing raids (after the 60 day time frame) into Tripoli that don't serve to protect the rebel fighters and have instead already caused collateral damage?

I'm an ardent supporter of TRNN but this person needs to be booted off their columns. If anyone else follows TRNN, I encourage you to send Paul Jay a letter asking for their disassociation of this neocon puppet. Thousands of faithful progressives visit the site on a daily basis for a regular dose of truth and this column will only serve to tarnish the considerable reputation TRNN has built over the past few years.

I only wonder why Gaddafi didn't call out the West for its true intentions while he had his soapbox. He still kind of does. Instead, he goes after the largely defunct Al-Qaeda? Can anyone shed some light on why he might have done this?

Obama is still free. Where is the justice in going after a bit player when the head don is untouchable.  He has ordered death and destruction to rain down on Pakistanis, Yemenis, Libyans and Afghans.  The monthly NATO civilian murder count around the world is far greater than Gaddafi's has been since he fell out of favour as one of NATO's preferred arms customers.  

Caissa wrote:

Has ther ever been any doubt as to the true nature of the International Criminal Court?

You mean the ICC that is supported by every party in the Canadian parliament? Do you mean the same ICC that the NDP praises regularly?

I guess there does seem to be a consensus on the ICC and the D2P in our political class no matter what side of the spectrum the parties are on.  

Quote:

It is all credit to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that they have taken a sceptical attitude to atrocities until proven. Contrast this responsible attitude with that of Hillary Clinton or the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who blithely suggested that Gaddafi was using rape as a weapon of war to punish the rebels. Equally irresponsible would be a decision by the ICC to prosecute Gaddafi and his lieutenants, thus making it far less likely that Gaddafi can be eased out of power without a fight to the finish. This systematic demonisation of Gaddafi – a brutal despot he may be, but not a monster on the scale of Saddam Hussein – also makes it difficult to negotiate a ceasefire with him, though he is the only man who can deliver one.

Patrick Cockburn: Don't believe everything you see and read about Gaddafi

Any of the above and Barry Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan.

A group of Libyan students at the University of New Brunswick will be able to attend courses for another year after funding finally came through from their home country.

The funding had been caught up in international trade sanctions and internal unrest in Libya, but the Libyan government released the money last week.

The scholarships pay for tuition, medical benefits and accommodation for 500 students across Canada, including a dozen at UNB. Along with Libyan students around the world, they were stranded in a foreign country with little money.

Many universities, including UNB, covered the students' costs in June.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2011/06/27/nb-libyan-s...

Frmrsldr]</p> <p>[quote=The Straits Times (Singapore) wrote:

Mr. Mohamed Zekri Mahjubi [Libya's prosecutor general] told foreign journalists in Tripoli he was seeking to prosecute Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Libyan courts for 'war crimes'.
'As Nato secretary general, Rusmussen is responsible for the actions of his organisation which has attacked an unarmed people, killing 1,108 civilians and wounding 4,537 others in bombardment of Tripoli and other cities and villages.'
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_690475.html

As for the rest: the only way NATO's involvement and Kaddafi's removal would have took 90 days was if they had the balls to really pick sides, declare war and go all out... their half assed attempt at being half assed is making a bad situation worse.

From an article in [i]Socialist Worker[/i] (US):

Quote:

In the early days of the rebellion, Qaddafi used the ideological framework of the "war on terror" to discredit those who were rising up against his rule, claiming absurdly that al-Qaeda had slipped hallucinogenic drugs into young Libyans' coffee, thereby disorienting them enough to revolt.

[b]In reality, the rebellion in Libya was inspired by the mass democratic revolutions in its two neighbors along the Mediterranean coast, Tunisia and Egypt.[/b] In Libya, people fed up with the lack of democracy and profound inequality took to the streets to show their opposition to the status quo - first in the eastern part of the country near the Egyptian border, then spreading toward the capital of Tripoli, before Qaddafi rallied the regime's forces for a counter-offensive.

The reason the uprising in Libya shared so many features of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere is because [b]they were all driven by the same underlying conditions of poverty, oppression and political repression.[/b]

But to ANSWER, the Libyan rebels were all CIA stooges, motivated not by a desire for freedom and democracy, but to do the bidding of the U.S. and other Western governments.

Of course, there are anti-Qaddafi figures and organizations in Libya with longstanding connections to the U.S., and a number of them are now represented on the Transitional National Council, which has claimed to speak for the whole opposition in Libya. But there are at least as many stories and examples from early on in the rebellion to show the opposite--for example, when rebels promptly evicted British MI6 agents they discovered inside Libya.

[b]One of the primary aims of the Western intervention has been to shift the balance within the opposition to those who can be relied on to protect U.S. and European interests.[/b] U.S. officials have actively promoted not only those who were on the CIA payroll for years, but military officials who until just months ago were part of Qaddafi's regime.

The West wants a regime to replace Qaddafi that will be amenable to striking deals with Washington--as well as a reliably pro-U.S. government as a beachhead in the midst of the upheavals in the Arab world. Diplomatic and political attempts to shape the anti-Qaddafi opposition are every bit as important to this goal as the NATO bombing campaign. Opponents of the U.S. war machine must oppose every aspect of Western intervention.

[b]But to claim that the rebellion against Qaddafi was driven by Western influence in the first place is to turn the real history of the uprising upside down.[/b] [my emphasis]

[url=http://socialistworker.org/2011/07/12/disservice-to-the-antiwar-fight]A Disservice to the Anti-war Movement[/url]

@FS: I was more doing the pot calling the kettle black analogy.

 @NS: NATO could remove Kaddafi in 90 days or less just like the US removed Saddam and the Taliban from power; that is not to say, as we've all seen, the conflict would be over by any means.  

I wasn't implying that any such action was justified, it isn't, I'm just saying they could do it if they really wanted to if they were willing to pay the price for it.

Your analysis of that picture by the way is incorrect: Not to defend Bush, I really don't like to, but the sign was congratulating that aircraft carrier crew on completing their 10 month mission in the middle east, thus the mission completed sign, and if you can stomach reading the real speech he announces the end of the major military operation in Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, which is technically a true statement, not the end of fighting in Iraq. I prefer to bash him for the whole fucking Iraq escapade and view this as nit picking... incorrect nit picking at that.

@M Specter: Great article; It's good to see at least one socialist workers web site got it right. NDPP has posted links from WSW and they seemed to be in the ANSWER camp; the Libyan rebels are CIA goons. If ANSWER is the "head of the anti-war movement in the USA" you can see why they really aren't that popular; it's not that most Americans are pro war; it's just that we can see they're as dumb as the far right idiots.

[url=http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/libya-and-the-united-front.htm... to see the PSL try to distance itself[/url] from the comments of McKinney and others in support of Qaddafi.

PSL is the leading political force behind ANSWER.

I agree with their "points of unity" and with this:  "These points of unity do not require a particular position on Muammar Gaddafi. On the ‘Eyewitness Libya’ tour, some speakers expressed admiration for Gaddafi’s support of the African Union, or the development of the Libyan welfare state. We do not have to have an identical view of Gaddafi to whole-heartedly organize alongside one another."

But I think they are taking a mechanical view of the Libyan opposition by ruling out support for the insurgents simply because (thanks to western intervention) the conservative opposition elements seem to predominate.  "Advocating for the rebels now is advocating for NATO" is wrong in my opinion.

Perhaps they think that leftists should not have advocated in support of the 1905 revolution in Russia, since it was led by bourgeois reformists? That revolution set in motion a process that culminated in the overthrow of bourgeois rule twelve years later.

Should we not support the revolution in Egypt because the bourgeois military has the upper hand at the moment? The revolution continues, and ultimately the current rulers of Egypt will go the way of Mubarak.

ETA: Unfortunately, the "points of unity" are obviously cast aside in a [url=http://www.answercoalition.org/national/news/new-answer-libya-video.html... being promoted by ANSWER[/url]. The message is clearly one of support for Qaddafi's counter-revolution and the defeat of the rebel forces (which are mechanistically equated with NATO). Good luck building an antiwar coalition with baggage like that!

M. Spector wrote:

[url=http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/libya-and-the-united-front.htm... to see the PSL try to distance itself[/url] from the comments of McKinney and others in support of Qaddafi.

PSL is the leading political force behind ANSWER.

I agree with their "points of unity" and with this:  "These points of unity do not require a particular position on Muammar Gaddafi. On the ‘Eyewitness Libya’ tour, some speakers expressed admiration for Gaddafi’s support of the African Union, or the development of the Libyan welfare state. We do not have to have an identical view of Gaddafi to whole-heartedly organize alongside one another."

But I think they are taking a mechanical view of the Libyan opposition by ruling out support for the insurgents simply because (thanks to western intervention) the conservative opposition elements seem to predominate.  "Advocating for the rebels now is advocating for NATO" is wrong in my opinion.

Perhaps they think that leftists should not have advocated in support of the 1905 revolution in Russia, since it was led by bourgeois reformists? That revolution set in motion a process that culminated in the overthrow of bourgeois rule twelve years later.

Should we not support the revolution in Egypt because the bourgeois military has the upper hand at the moment? The revolution continues, and ultimately the current rulers of Egypt will go the way of Mubarak.

ETA: Unfortunately, the "points of unity" are obviously cast aside in a [url=http://www.answercoalition.org/national/news/new-answer-libya-video.html... being promoted by ANSWER[/url]. The message is clearly one of support for Qaddafi's counter-revolution and the defeat of the rebel forces (which are mechanistically equated with NATO). Good luck building an antiwar coalition with baggage like that!

So far the arguments of both the political right and left are based on an assumed right or license to interfere either militarily or otherwise in the affairs of other countries.

No such right exists.

We have no right to attack and/or wage a War of Aggression against another country.

We have no right to attempt regime change in another country.

We have no right to choose (for ourselves) a side in a conflict, revolution or civil war (and interfere militarily or otherwise) in another country.

WE have no right to tell (unasked) people what to do and how to run things in THEIR country.

Whether WE consider Mr. Gadhafi a 'good guy' or not should have no bearing on how Libyans see him and what they decide to do with their future.

What goes on in Libya is no one's business but the Libyans.

No one has the right to start pushing them around, interfering in the affairs of their country and telling them what to do.

By whatever name we give it, that's imperialism.

NATO’s War for the Abaya

by Susan Lindauer / July 28th, 2011

For European bankers, it’s a war for Libya’s Gold. For oil corporations, it’s a war for Cheap Crude (now threatening to destroy Libya’s oil infrastructure, just like Iraq). But for Libya’s women, it’s a fierce, knock down battle over the Abaya — an Islamic style of dress that critics say deprives women of self-expression and identity.

Hillary Clinton and President Sarkozy might loath to admit it, but the desire to turn back the clock on women rights in Libya constitutes one of the chief goals for NATO Rebels on the Transitional Council....

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/07/35312/#more-35312

http://arabnews.com/economy/article480491.ece

document leak of US corp out sourcing war to Nato

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=380IK1WftwA