Libya 20

Two of your links don't work and this is not a three penny opera.

The first link does work and it is a great description of disaster capitalism in full tilt boogie. 

Quote:

The potential profits are huge. While there are pockets of damage to infrastructure and former Gaddafi command centers, the country is in far better shape than Iraq was after the fall of Saddam. At the same time, Libya needs new investment in everything from schools to services. According to the French business federation, Libya should offer around $200 billion in investment opportunities over the next 10 years. With a population of just over 6 million and Africa's largest oil reserves, it has plenty to spend. Up to $170 billion worth of frozen Gaddafi-era assets alone should help pay for reconstruction.

Here's how companies are playing this new front in the latest scramble for Africa.

...

In the Gaddafi era, just under 50 French firms operated in Libya. In early September, when Paris hosted a symposium about the NTC for entrepreneurs, about 400 executives attended, rushing in and out with briefcases and notepads at the ready.

Attendees included an A-Z of the top names in the Paris CAC-40, law firms, architects, the postal service, wheat companies, printers, tobacco firms, and insurance firms. The meeting, organized by the Franco-Libyan chamber of commerce, was described by Courtaigne, the business lobbyist, as "focused and extremely studious".

Thanks NS. I think I fixed it.

And I agree with your assessment; I didn't post it because I thought it was a good turn of events. The point is that it seems that is the way things were going before the uprising. 

And of course it isn't the Three Penny Opera. That's why I wonder about the spokesperson trying to pass him off as "desert tent Muammar" after the fashion of "log cabin Abe".

And I almost forgot the banking stuff. Spot the difference:

http://www.tradearabia.com/news/bank_182572.html

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2011/09/21/hsbc-to-resume-libya-op...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13552364

The NTC and NATO seem to be matching  every NATO massacre with a story of yet another mass grave in one of the regime's prisons. 

Anything coming out of the m.s.m. is suspect for me, now, especially if it involves justifying the war crimes of NATO or a friendly state against an "enemy".   Paranoids aren't necessarily born as such; they're created by reality when it comes to politics. 

Faster than you can say "I told you so" the U.S./NATO is preparing to send ground forces to Libya.

Jason Ditz wrote:

According to White House spokesman Jay Carney, the United States is preparing to deploy additional forces on the ground in Libya to "secure conventional arms storage sites" as well as to try to track down missing surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).

... Though weapons of all shapes and sizes were looted, the shoulder-launched SAMs are of particular concern to the US, as they could pose a threat to US warplanes the world over now that they are out of the warehouse and in general circulation.

20,000 is a lot of missiles too. One rights group cautioned that the SAMs coming out of Libya were enough to turn all of northern Africa into a no-fly zone.

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/09/27/white-house-more-deployment-to-libya-...

Poetic justice I'd say.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

The NTC has said the Lockerbie bombing case is closed

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/26/us-libya-lockerbie-idUSTRE78P1...

Did you even read the article? It doesn't sound closed to me:

Quote:

Libya's interim justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi turned them down, telling reporters: "The case is closed."

But the Foreign Office in London said it had talked with the NTC late on Monday and it had promised continued cooperation.

"NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil has already assured the prime minister that the Libyan authorities will cooperate with the UK in this and other ongoing investigations," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

Hmm, let's see:

Western governments hold billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets.

The NTC is in desperate need of those funds.

Yeah, I think our little NTC installed puppets are going to do exactly what we want very shortly.

@ NDPP

On a similar note, I saw a BBC photo gallery a few weeks ago of graffiti in Tripoli. There were a number of cartoons of Gadaffi, one of them with a star of David on his hat. 

So yes, it seems there is an appeal to racism and xenophobia on a number of fronts.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Yes M. Spector. I read the article.

What it sounds like to me a misunderstanding, or lies.

That quote (from a British government spokesperson, not a Libyan one) says that ongoing cooperation was assured.

But in the story's lede and in the paragraph just before that quote it clearly states that the NTC will not provide any more evidence - including on Gadaffi. As a matter of fact the whole point of the story centres around the council's refusal

That does not sound like cooperation to me. Clearly someone is either trying to smear, or did not get the memo.

Read it again and note the timeline:

1. Scottish prosecutors ask the NTC to give them access to papers or witnesses that could implicate more suspects.

2. Libya's interim leaders say on Monday that Tripoli will not release more evidence that could lead to others being charged.

3. [b]Late on Monday[/b] the British Foreign Office talks with the NTC and the NTC promises continued co-operation.

4. Also [b]late on Monday[/b] a spokesman for the Foreign Office says, "Having spoken with the NTC this [Monday] evening, we understand that this [co-operation agreement] remains the case. The police investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open."

First Tripoli refused to co-operate, but then they relented when the Foreign Office called. What's so hard to understand about that?

To you, the phrase "the bottom line is..." seems to mean "forget what I said before and read this instead...".

First you say it's an appeal to racism and xenophobia and then you say it's an "unfair" or "inaccurate" attempt to smear. Those are two very different statements.

As for the substance of your objection to associating Qaddafi with Israel, there is certainly [url=http://my.firedoglake.com/edwardteller/2011/03/03/israeli-company-hires-... of Israeli mercenaries being used to help Qaddafi suppress the rebels[/url], as well as good reason to believe that Israel itself regarded the fall of Qaddafi as a [url=http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=4240]"strategic danger"[/url] for Israel.

It's graffiti scribbled on a wall, and I think it's fair comment.

Appealing to "negative emotions" is hardly unusual in a civil war against a hated ruler.

You don't think it's a "sophisticated" criticism of Harper to put stars and stripes on his hat in, say, an editorial cartoon? Assuming you're right about that, is anything short of "sophisticated" criticism to be denounced by "progressives"?

And don't you think it's pretty [b]unsophisticated[/b] to assume that criticism of Harper for being too closely allied with U.S. interests is simply playing to hatred of Americans? Wouldn't a more sophisticated point of view consider it a legitimate political point to make about Canada's relationship as junior partner to U.S. imperialism — even if "not everyone hates" Harper?

There will always be [b]right-wing apologists[/b] who will try to dismiss such critiques as mindless "anti-Americanism", but one would be entitled to expect a more sophisticated and sympathetic view of such a critique from those who have any inkling of the vicious nature of U.S. imperialism.

Just as one would expect that calling Stephen Harper the greatest friend of Israel outside of Israel itself would be taken by progressive persons as responsible criticism, rather than being dismissed as playing to "some people's" hatreds. 

6079_Smith_W wrote:

It might seem insignificant, but I don't think we would take what the White House says about Canadian policy as fact until it was confirmed here. I'd rather not make those same assumptions about another nation, even one which does not have a stable government.

Who else do you speak for?  

Why the royal we of course, NS. 

Or perhaps that should be the Royal We.

Whom else, indeed...

6079_Smith_W wrote:

It might seem insignificant, but I don't think we would take what the White House says about Canadian policy as fact until it was confirmed here.

If Stephen Harper said on Monday that Canada would not co-operate with the U.S. in an international criminal investigation, and the U.S. State Department said that on Tuesday it had been assured in a phone call to the Canadian government that in fact Canada would co-operate, I think it would be irresponsible to assume that the State Department was lying and that Harper had not changed his mind.

Terrorist Op-Ed: Libya's Al Qaeda Rebel Commander Writes Column for Britain's Progressive Media

Global elite defile memories of "War on Terror" dead, humor terrorist Belhaj who fought and killed Western troops.

Quote:

One would think Abdul Belhaj, leader of Libya's NATO-backed seizure of Tripoli a month ago would be an overly busy man. After all, the city itself is still not secure enough to move the alleged "National Transitional Council" there to preside over the war torn nation, and rebel forces 85 miles southeast near Bani Walid have been soundly defeated and are now slinking away from the battlefield. Meanwhile, the "final, final" siege of Sirte looks to be once again stalled, and now civilians fleeing the brutalized city are claiming NATO and revolutionaries, not Qaddafi, are committing genocide against the civilians of Libya.

CIA "blowback" = ongoing collusion with extreme right wing terrorists

The NTC is at least as much a puppet regime as Harper's regime is.  Of course in the real world if a PM gives in to things like security integration, buying overpriced US war munitions and using our military in regime change situations then they get to have a public disagreement on trivial matters or matters that might embarrass them.  I would expect the same type of independence from any newly installed regime especially one that was given NATO for its airforce in the civil war. If I was to guess I suspect that some of the current leadership overlap with the players involved in the Lockerbie incident and they believe that sleeping dogs should be euthanized.

The bullshit just keeps piling higher.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

@ M. Spector #85

Really? I think I'd wait for the confirmation.

And yet you decided to run with the story of how the Libyan NTC was asserting its independence from the west by refusing to co-operate with Scottish authorities on the Lockerbie case, even though the very news item you linked to cast serious doubt on that story.

Is that what they teach in journalism school these days?

Quote:

I can think of plenty of instances where our government and the U.S. did not have the same understanding of a situation; trade agreements are just one example.

It's not a matter of having a different understanding of the same facts - this was a case of more recent facts (reported by actual participants in the telephone conversation between Britain and the puppet NTC) directly contradicting previous facts (the comments of the "interim justice minister" of Libya - who presides over, basically, nothing), and confirming previous assurances given by the [b]chairman of the NTC[/b] to the [b]British prime minister[/b] that co-operation would continue.

You want to wait for confirmation of the new facts? But you didn't; you ignored them because they contradicted your own theory that the plucky and independent NTC was standing up against the British imperialists. Instead of "waiting for confirmation" you took the original story at face value and trumpeted it here at babble. And of course when confirmation finally came sufficient to satisfy your skepticism, it turned out your judgement was 180° wrong.

"Extreme right-wing terrorists"?

It's so nice to see that Globalresearch.ca, which never heard of a conspiracy it didn't embrace whole-heartedly, has now jumped on the bandwagon of the War on Terra™.

Quote:

Global elite defile memories of "War on Terror" dead, humor terrorist Belhaj who fought and killed Western troops.

Nasty terr'ist! How dare he go to Iraq and make war upon our brave Anglo-American troops!!  [img]http://archive.rabble.ca/babble/rolleyes.gif[/img]

M. Spector wrote:

"Extreme right-wing terrorists"?

It's so nice to see that Globalresearch.ca, which never heard of a conspiracy it didn't embrace whole-heartedly, has now jumped on the bandwagon of the War on Terra™.

 

Quote:

Global elite defile memories of "War on Terror" dead, humor terrorist Belhaj who fought and killed Western troops.

Nasty terr'ist! How dare he go to Iraq and make war upon our brave Anglo-American troops!!  [img]http://archive.rabble.ca/babble/rolleyes.gif[/img]

 

Well you have three choices. You can:

   1.  believe the imperialists themselves when they claim to be fighting an entirely legitimate global war on terror since 9/11/01(GWOT plus Homeland Stupidity) and it follows, naturally, the very imperialist CIA's own "blowback" narrative that they and their jihadi terrorist friends had a major falling out as corporate sponsored newz media have leaked to the public every now and then. Throw in a little Elvis bin Laden mythos, and yer practically a Yanqui doodle dandy swallowing anything the corporate newz media feed you. Blech!

2. or you can believe the whistleblowers and lefties who've pointed to reams of evidence that the very imperialist CIA's anticommunist jihad didn't actually cease by 1991 and have been colluding with everyone from the Taliban to "al Qa'eda" ever since.

It's your choice, really. Life's all about choices. So choose wisely.