He will be deposed! The situation is getting out of control and the disruption of oil supply to the hungry West will also drive a stronger interest in moving forward with more actions. I wish I could say it is only the humanitarian reasons which drive all the actions but realistically speaking there is more than that.

The arrogance and pride of this delusional murderer has no limit but his leadership is weakening and access to the money he has stolen from the Libian people is now limited. May he live to pay for all his criminal acts!!!! 

With Gaddafi, I think, it helps that everbody hates the guy. That's the reason why Sec Council Resolution 1970 passed.

Usually UN Security Council referral wouldn't be possible because of the veto. That's why Gaddafi this time falls on his back, while Blair and Bush are safe.

In those rare cases that the state is either a party to the ICC or the Security Council agrees, there is hope for justice. And if other factors (Giankee post) align in order to help that view - even better.

Bush and Blair just did the walk of shame, they haven't paid for their crimes but they never publicly said they will turn a country into a river of blood even if that's what ended up happening in Irak and Afghanistan (especially the bombings of innocent people by mistake or not). 

One thing I can say about Bush...he predicted that Democracy and free elections in Irak and Afghanistan would encourage reform in the region and that's what's happening in Middle East and North Africa. I think Bush and Blair should have taken a different approach to it (not the deadly and unilateral one). Unfortunately, the United Nations (Security Council) is no longer representative of the world we live in and it needs to undergo its own reforms if it is to provide a better policy framework in the international arena. The world today is no longer the same as it was after World War II.     

I am not sure we should accuse anyone of crime because i dont feel comfortable with the equation where blair and bush equal kadafi

somehow there is a subtle difference, i think

still here is a video of the UN WATCH group that questions the sort of circus

that leads innocent souls to actually thinking the UN is a serious organization

and not a circus that gives the keys to the car to someone who should

not be on the road , definitely not deciding who should be driving and how   

P.S. 

I hope this is not westlife again 

i have not been successful at posting videos tonight..therefore my repetititve  empty posts .

i dont want to be involved in a political discussion just sharing this video of someone who has been asking the right questions

i am not defending tony blair i just find it absurd the way the leaders of the free world are seen as criminals while the fascist leaders of arab countries are excused of any responsibilty because of it being in character somehow

i would prefer your reaction to what the UN watch is saying rather than focus

on tony blair again or bush

i am interested why fascist regime leaders are not only accepted but welcomed as heros and given positions on human rights committees 

Right. The point though is that the ICC is different from the UN.

The only difference between Gaddafi and Bush is that the first victimizes his own people, the second - other people.

The irony of democracies - dictatorships violate own citizens, democracies expand and violate people abroad... In terms of numbers, Bush is even worse... it's just that for many people there is this psychological barrier to compare a democratic leader to a dictator. The first must be always better and on a different plain... or is he?

hi¨

Guess Ivet that rules are made to be broken so i will answer your statement 

with further questions regarding your statements:

"The only difference "- is that true is that the only difference

did bush and blair merely violate the people abroad 

was that ALL they did ?

and is that what they set out to do and is that what in fact happened 

that they violated other people, that is it?

was the military action in Iraq only negative?

And is that the ONLY difference you can think of when you compare the two 

regimes??

because everything sounds better in French 

Well maybe all the oppressed Arabic people can go to Israel, establish a new state there on the grounds that they have no free homeland, and then terrorize the entire region and beyond with continuous and unlimited support from China, including a staggering nuclear arsenal :)

Only then can we start to talk about a real comparison to what has been going on in the Middle East for the last 50 years, all in the name of "advanced" democracy...

David

that does not answer the questions 

simplifying the matter into comparing the two as though they were idenitical 

is simply that 

simplifying 

obviously you have a preconceived notion of the bush or blair or both regimes

and insist that they are identical to the kadafi 

that oversimplifies matters and misses on some essential points you would 

be able to detect had you not had those preconceived ideas 

still thinking in questions 

p.s. 

just to compare 

it seems to me that you probobly could dig up a lot of dirt on the British 

during WW2, they did hang jewish freedom fighters who probobly had either escaped nazi regimes in europe or would have been victims of russian czar organized pogroms had they not been fighting for a jewish state in israel and yet no one compares the british to the germans during ww2

why is that ? 

a conspiracy theory ? 

or perhaps you can not compare that easily just because both regimes 

did unethical deeds

it is not that simple to compare and ignore such matters as ideology motivation etc etc 

Gadafi will rise or fall based on the local power strugles in Lybia, and not based on the ICC / UN's actions / talk. 

If Gadafi (aka Big G) manages to squash the current rebelion and maintain power, no one in the ICC or UN will touch him. 

Only if / when Big G falles from power, cos his own people threw him out, then will the UN / ICC "spring" into action and go after him. 

The UN / ICC don't go after the strong people who can fight back, they go after the weak ones. 

the way i see it 

it is all about oil 

my swiss born kids already know how to sing 

*it's money that matters"

but hopefully not live by that philosophy 

regimes may do unethical deeds  at times but they also do ethical deeds

and the judgement day when it arrives should bring into consideration 

all deeds

As for Gadaffi it is interesting how calamy ray sings a different tune 

depending on where the wind blows

but some regimes have an ideology that somehow goes beyond 

oil and all that jazz 

one wonders why people who deny the holocaust always seem to be the worst 

racists on the face of the planet and why nine out of ten the same people who 

attack the microscopic jewish homeland and demand it be divided to ONE BILLIARD moslems 

also do not express any interest in human rights beyond that of a small group

of moslems who happened to have wondered into the holy land just around

the time the zionists tried to save the jews from being massacred by

various regimes in Europe ..

Interesting correlations 

also interesting to note is how you can compare Gaddafi to Bush 

so easily and skip some things the US does that actually helps human rights 

i know it is a hard question but surely you can think of one or two things?

( hint. during WW2 though a bit late they did liberate the concentration camps 

and beat the nazis although it meant bombing germany) 

P.S. 

for those living in the French part 

what does Ziegler teach ? 

denial of genocide 101?

i would love to read some of his publications 

or is it mythology ?

Thank you for sharing this video.

The Bulgarians and the Palestinian who is speaking in the UN video were tortured for close to 10 years - imagine ...

And this right here in the UN video is a farce - "Only in the framework of the objective of discrimination": The man is explaining how the torture was on the basis of discrimination because they aprehended and tortured only foreigners in this case. And she doesn't let him speak ... Farce  ... Disgusting ...

The evil mentality has not changed. On the hand, technology has and very much so! The problem, in my view, lies on the fact that wars are created by the "elites" and they themselves "by mere coincidence" happen to have a stake in the media, go figure! In essence what has changed with respect to WWII is that the world today is more hypocritical and manipulative than ever! Not necessarily more violent. 

Looking at how the United Nations behave closed doors and how dictators outspokenly sponsor conflicts and killing (like Ghaddafi) only proves how equally repulsive the UN and the gang of dictators are. No action is taken by the UN unless there is evidence of massive killing after which its burocratic aparatus gets moving when and if the country involved is...(let's say)...rich in resources otherwise no "effective" action is carried on. Dictators on the other hand besides getting away with massacres, tortures, etc. they get to accumulate fortunes at home and in the so-called Western democracies, this only one example of the hipocrisy I'm referring to.

For clarification purposes, I'm not against the UN nor do I want to discredit its mission but I am very critical of its lack of effective response and tardiness and even more so of its non existing preventive resolutions coupled with its internal hypocrisy :-)

P.S.: Any UN employee of Human Resources, please add my name to the 'NEVER-HIRE' list :-)     

Because Gadaffi like Milosevic and Taylor are small potatoes and the politicised ICC won't go after the big criminals - too much in common from a cultural socio-economic point of view and too much too lose.  Even Human Rights lawyers and judges follow the path of least resistance.

Elections in Iraq and Afghanistan were hardly free and fair.  How would you feel about elections in an Italy occupied by British forces?  And I hardly think Bush nor Blair were motivated to bring freedom or democracy to any part of the world - that would require a moral conscience and both individuals are amoral (as opposed to immoral).  Egyptians and Tunisians and others in the the MENA are fed up with years of poverty and unequal distribution of the fruits of labour and natural resources and not motivated by the continuing violence of the Iraqi regime against its own people nor the continued suppression of women in Afghanistan, the corruption of Karzai and family and the continuing night time raids of US and ISAF forces, not to mention drone and helicopter attacks against 9 year old children.

The UN Security Council was never representative of the world we lived in

Who is "everybody"?  The hypocritical West (millions dead in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan, Indonesia under US supported Suharto coup, 1/3 of of East Timorese, millions of Vietnamese, hundreds of thousands of El Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Paraguayans, Uruguayans, Argentinians under the Generals, Chile under Allende, Greeks under the colonels and British and American post WWII aggression against the anti-Nazi resistance, the displaced of the Chagos islands etc ad nauseum)?

I believe there were 5 abstentions as well in this small elitist club.

The subtle difference being, based on a lie of WMD and connection to 911 Bush and Blair are responsible for the murder of millions and the displacement of 4 million Iraqis. With the use of depleted uranium tipped weapons childhood cancers have and are skyrocketing.  When asked about the death of 500, 000 children due to sanctions Madeleine albright said the price was worth it.  Can I see the comparable figures for the tinpot crackpot of Libya?

Britain and the US armed Hussein to the teeth and supplied satellite imagery of Iran.  They provided poison gas so that Husein could use it on Iranian human beings whose country had been invaded by Hussein and not vice versa.

After the first Gulf war Bush Sr. encouraged the uprising against Hussein and prevented any American military assistance leading to massacres.

Yes a quite subtle difference!

The military action was only negative.  Destroyed infrastructure -sewage treatment and electricity. Internecine civil war. A ruthless Maliki who tortures.  Precious artifacts of civilisation destroyed and looted.  Oil revenue lost.  Millions dead and displaced with childhood leukemias on the rise and congenital birth defects as well.  Cluster bomblets littering the country.  All this in a country that had disarmed its WMD (Scott Ritter, US Marine and UNSCOM inspector as well as Hussein's brother-in-law) and was no threat to any neighbour. No neighbour voiced concern of a threat from Iraq. Prior to sanctions and 2 wars it had the highest standard of living in the Arab world (under a crackpot dictator). Now one of the lowest living standards under an ruthless Maliki.

Is that what you would call progress?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And let us not forget the 4400 dead US soldiers and hundreds of thousands physically and mentally maimed with veteran suicides and epidemic. Stiglitz conservatively estimates the war cost 3 trillion which contributed to the US and world economic crisis.  And all based on a lie!! Let's see Gaddaffi match that!

Contrary to what you think, there are people in the middle east who support democracy. I'm neither Blair nor Bush supporter, however, I will not place them in the same category as Gaddafi (for obvious reasons). There is no such thing as a perfect political system. Democracy has its faults and I certainly do not expect the first few elections in Iraq and Afghanistan to be 100% transparent. After all, both countries were governed by military regimes and terrorists (yes, they were!) so you cannot expect for a regime change in an occupied country to be more like a walk in the park. Of course Blair and Bush are amoral and inmoral (I would use both for rethorical purposes), I wasn't arguing that. I disagree that Egyptians, Lybians, and Tunisians among others decided to riot only on the basis of being fed up of their regimes. They were asking for reform and for free elections as well. They won't rally for a new political leader or figure if he's to rule under the exact same system. As far as US foreign policy goes, we all know it dances to the rythm of convenience just as anyone else's...France, Germany, UK, China, Russia, the UN for that matter, etc. etc. No one gives a damn about Rwanda, Somalia, Bhurma, or Liberia as there's nothing to be taken or stolen from there.  

Civilians have always paid the price of wars and that's what makes war a horrible act of our own creation.  

The UN should be subject to scrutiny but who is watching UN Watch?  What is their agenda?  Where is their concern for Human rights violations in Gaza, the West Bank and International Seas? What is their position on the Goldstone Report on the attack against Gaza?  What is their position on the Freedom flotilla raid that killed 9 Turkish citizens one of whom a dual citizen American? Check out UN Watch and TV interviews with Hillel Neuer as well as all the other tabs at the site: http://www.unwatch.org/site/c.bdKKISNqEmG/b.4846161/k.9BB4/UN_Watch_on_TV.htm

Human rights lite one might conclude. Reminds one of Fox News’ “Fair & Balanced” claim.

 Who is Hillel Neuer and what is his cultural background?( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_Neuer) What is the connection between the Shalem Center supported by Sheldon Adelson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Adelson  to set up the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies headed by Sharansky until he went to head up the Jewish Agency) of Neuer was a graduate Fellow and hosting the likes of Sharansky (“Jews came here 3,000 years ago and this is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Jews are the only people in history who kept their loyalty to their identity and their land throughout the 2,000 years of exile, and no doubt that they have the right to have their place among nations—not only historically but also geographically. As to the Palestinians, who are the descendants of those Arabs who migrated in the last 200 years, they have the right, if they want, to have their own state... but not at the expense of the state of Israel.”), Moshe Ya’alon ("The Palestinian threat harbours cancer-like attributes that have to be severed. There are all kinds of solutions to cancer. Some say it's necessary to amputate organs but at the moment I am applying chemotherapy."), Martin Kramer (At the February 2010 Herzliya Conference in Israel, Kramer caused controversy in a speech in which he advocated cuts in what he termed "pro-natal subsidies" to Palestinians as a means of discouraging population growth, thus curbing Islamic radicalization), Daniel Gordis author of ‘Saving Israel: How the Jewish State Can Win a War That May Never End’ ?

 Why is there so much focus on so-called anti-semitism (anti-Zionism/anti-Israeli government policy?) in the organisation’s website?  Why the fleeting attacks on Castro and Chavez both enemies and victims of hundreds of assasination atempts (Castro) and military coups (Chavez) of Israel’s main ally and supporter to the tune of billions annually in tax-free donations, loans, military sales and forgiven loans not to mention diplomatic support at the UN where the US vetos any security council resolution against Israel?  Who was Morris B Abram who founded UN Watch? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Berthold_Abram) And what is the history of the American Jewish Committee of which Abram was honorary President? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jewish_Committee)

Who’s watching UN Watch?

Dear Giankee,

I have never stated nor believed that there are no people in the ME intersted in democracy - quite on the contrary. I never accused you and never would (reading what you write) of being a Bush or Blair supporter. However given my descriptions of the unnecessary and based on lies war crimes of Blair and Bush against Iraq/Pakistan/Afghanistan, perhaps you could explain the "obvious reasons" they are not in the same category as Gadaffi?  If you mean they are in a wholly worse category then I am in agreement. To argue that the regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan were governed by military regimes and terrorist is to adopt the language of apologists for Western intervention (banned under UN law except in exceptional circumstances). Neither country posed threats to their neighbours.  The US supported Hussein for years until he stepped out of line and showed some independence and the US was negotiating with the Taliban for a oil pipeline through Afghanistan jsut prior to the war there. I can point out many other dictatorships, military regimes or regimes imposed my militaries (e.g. Honduras, Haiti), stolen elections (Bush and Mexico's Calderon) and yet there is no move by the US, Britain, NATO etc. to intervene to free the subject people.  Why the subjective choice of where to intervene? Egypptians asking for reform and free elections was an expression of their being fed up with the regime which did not allow a democratic sharing of the wealth and vote (obviously) and you and I are making the same point.

And you are absolutely correct about what motivates the foreign relations of countries as well as the criminality of war of which civilians (and soldiers and their families and communities after the cessation of hostilities) are victims. Violence and repression breed violence.

You and I are on the same page but may differ in minor interpretatiions of some (minor?) details.

Kind regards,

Mark

War is hell and somebody is responsible. Lest we forget! wher have all the flowers gone?

http://vimeo.com/17634407

Or the War we don't don't want to see?!

Gaddafi will suicide before they catch him. He is another Hitler in the making. But before he kills many, he will be killed :)

I admit I was pleasantly surprised the UN actually took a decision to act against Kadafi, and the decision was actually turned into action by some countries. Maybe too little too late, but still gives some hope.

Oh Mark! If we start discussing US foreign policy and how they prop up governments and later oust them, it will take us many hours if not days. The US record on that front is simply unbeatable! 

The hypocritical 'West' will stay that way as nothing is for free, not even charity! I don't stand up to defend the US nor its policies but I do stand for the common set of values that (in my opinion) dignify the people regardless of ethnicity/nationality...the right for an egalitarian justice system, the right to work, the right to have a decent home, the right to education, the right to have medical care, the right for food. I also believe in the duties of citizens and in a civilized society. 

Yes, we are both on the same page here. I only think that Gaddafi has gone completely out of his mind! After all he was involved in terrorist acts and his secret police is not exactly the kind of neighbour you'd want to have. Thanks to twitter, youtube, facebook and so on, the truth is getting out in places where regimes used to have full control of the information. Look at Bahrain for instance, people who riot were discredited by the government and accused of vandalism when it was really the police who committed vandalism to then accuse the protesters! They were also brutally repressed. The new technologies and media accesses are also hurting the hypocritical West among many others...look at Wikileaks. It has confirmed what we all know about US foreign policy but surpringly it has shown us just how worse the rest of the World is. If we thought the US diplomacy was hypocritical, look at the diplomatic relations of Brazil, France, Venezuela, among others and you'll discover that no one is excempt!  

I do agree with you about the United Nations...regardless of the resolutions that may or may not be backed by all members, the fact that it remained passive while bloodshed and massacres took place in 'lesser' countries is just as repulsive as any act of war.

Blair and Bush are responsible for the killing of many innocent civilians (no one should argue that). Gaddafi, however, has no consideration whatsoever towards his own people and country. Misdistribution of wealth as you said earlier is one big factor in the people's uprisings. At the same time, this misdistribution of wealth is everywhere we look around (unfortunately).

Kindest,

GC 

Dear GC,

Well I couldn't agree with you more except on how long it would take to discuss American policy.  I believe it would take a hundred years at the least seeing how long they've been at Manifesting their destiny.

All the disparity in the world (food, water, shellter, freedom, education etc.) is made by man and we must therefore seek man-made solutions.  There are no messiahs be they politicians, intellectuals and so forth forth although some can show the way so that people can get what they want (leadership in my view is not a person with all the answers and the roadmap but rather a coach who helps the team achieve what it wants and to get where it wants to get to).

I believe there are a number of simple solutions (paths is perhaps a better word) which require many small steps - as the American folk and anti-Viet Nam war song said "Bit by bit, row on row, we'll make this garden grow".  Bottom up government rather than the other way around is clearly to me a solution.  But to achieve that one needs education and freedom from living in the hologram (as Joe Bageant calls it) of constant consumerism, pathetic media (a la Berlusconi but also Rupert Murdoch, the BBC and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)) and education.  People need education that makes them curious to ask questions, indulge their passions and question authority rather than create robots that memorise so that they can function on the various assembly lines of corporations whether in the work(sweat)shop or the office block.  Workers (and we are all workers no matter how much we earn so long as we are not owners of production) need to organise i.e. form unions, and union membership needs legal encouragement and protection (one of many Obummer promises he has abandoned).  Disappointingly union membership has either declined or been corrupted or allowed itself to be conned by the owners of production and their lackey politicians. I remember a few years back, living in Belgium, a unnionist or 'left' intellectual saying that the Belgians were being waylaid by grasping for (being promised) a bigger piece of a(n) (temporarily) increasing pie rather than demanding job security.  Well for a few years they enjoyed newer cars, plasma screens etc. and then the crunch came as factories are closing and jobs disappearing.

A look at American history - and I highly recommend Howard Zinn's 'A People's History' - reveals that strong unionism and socialism with a strong socialist press and a socialist presidential candidate polling millions of votes is possible even in America as it was present only a few years back in the early part of the last century. And I salute the more 'social' Europe as opposed to America (and Canada to a degree) but the neoliberal changes are spreading everywhere with Irish, Latvians, Lithuanians, Greeks, Italians, English etc. being told to expect less and to tighten their belts.  It is encouraging to see many protesting and new political formations arising but we are in for a long struggle. But then democracy is a continuing struggle as once one problem is solved, evolutions in society or thiking create new ones to be discussed and dealt with.

You are quite correct about all of this mess occurring in many countries though I might disagree to a small extent on including Venezuela (where literacy and health has improved for many but still Chavez needs to create a socio-political movement with a new group of 'leaders' and not just remain a populist). Therefore the sorts of 'grassroots' bottom up solutions - solid education, unionism and a worker say in production, responsive media (perhaps the social media of twitter and bloggers etc), representative and impeachable government and judges - will need to find their place in all these countries.  But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater and history is, like the British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm says, a clockwork mechanism that moves forward and can't go back, so these evolutions and solutions will need to take place within the existing societies while democratising them at the same time. Change will have to take place at the individual level as we all must confront our wasteful polluting consumption but also on smaller to larger scales in community groups, schools, churches, unions, the workplace, governments etc.  And all this will have to happen while those with power hold the barrel of a gun at our head!

In solidariity,

Groucho Marksist

I think Pilger hits the nail on the head when he states “What the US, British and French hope to achieve is the opposite of a people’s liberation. In undermining efforts Libya’s genuine democrats and nationalists to free their country from both a dictator and those corrupted by foreign demands...”  Many other writers have made this point that the US and other Western nations (probably true of the old Soviet Union, today’s Russia and China because as Chomsky has written ‘states are not moral actors’) are concerned that small nations and former colonies act independent of their ‘interests’.

The US has tolerated too many tyrants the world over to name here as has the EU, Canada, Australia.  They may have been bastards but it was OK if they were our bastards.  One such bastard was Saddam Hussein who started to show some signs of acting independently of Washington and then had to go.  Manuel Noriega on the CIA payroll who allowed anti-Nicaraguan contras to use Panamanian territory was another one who had to go when he started to resist the presence of contras in Panama.  That Britain will support any compliant and paying bastard (Hussein, Gadaffi) is well highlighted in Pilger’s film about Britain’s international arms trade: http://www.johnpilger.com/videos/flying-the-flag-arming-the-world

How the EU and the US will extricate themselves from this pickle is going to be interesting to see while it will be sad for Libya and others wishing to tear away the shackles of their own repressive regimes.  And it will be financially costly to the populations of the EU and US who undergoing economic traumas could well better see the money spent at home repairing infrastructure, teaching kids, caring for patients, creating jobs and rebuilding sustainable economies.  Most people want peace, employment, a happy family/social life, clean safe environment and not war – that’s why politicians have to be such accomplished liars to call these wars moral necessities and interventions.

'Most people want peace, employment, a happy family/social life, clean safe environment and not war'

I think it's not as simple as that. Politicians don't do it despite everybody's wishes. In my view the quote above means by definition war and lack of social structure in some other parts of the world where people won't get that

Oh it is that simple. I'm not saying poliiticians want wars but they are quite prepared to initiate them, tolerate them and supply them despite the costs financial and morally.  Smedley Butler said war is a racket and you should read about him at wikipedia if you don't know him already.  Also watch the Pilger film to see who benefits (Mark Thatcher for example.  Cui bono and follow the money.

Also so many people (soldier recruits included) are sold on 'clean' wars with smart weapons with little collateral damage (read dead, torn mangled bodies of men, women and children) that they are not allowed to see the real picture and soldiers come back traumatised by what they didn't expect and what they did. Watch what some of these American Viet Nam veterans have to say about the horror and trauma they experienced: http://www.johnpilger.com/videos/heroes

Most people do not like wars and that is why politicians lie.  They are not forced into wars and do not know better than we the people.  Remember the millions who marched against the second Iraq war and the lies of weapons of mass destruction that could reach Britain in 45 minutes according to Mr. Bliar.

can't understand why is this hitler still living comfortably in tripoli? and why NATO is not doing enough? at least in the beginning, when US was there it was moving ahead in breakneck speed.... now all of a sudden, so slow...  Europe and NATO should be ashamed of their combat power, relying wholly on the US for everything.

He was allowed to live comfortably by his own cunning courtship of African countries through financing development projects and by supplying oil and gas to Europe and buying their weapons in return.

The UN has conventions that when signed become automatically part of each country's domestic law.  One such law is that it is forbidden to launch an unprovoked (i.e. a country didn't attack you) war of aggression.  Many Nazis and Japanese were hung for this.  Defending yourself once attacked is permissible.  But countries in the security council seem adept at drafting new resolutions to go around the binding ones forbidding unprovoked aggressive war.  Remember Iraq (and non-existent WMD) and now we can add Libya to our Orwellian memory hole.

Universal soldiers are not the answer!

It is also interesting your use of the name Hitler.  No one and I mean no one has ever accused or proven that Gadaffi has committed atrocities on the scale of Hitler - 6 milion Jews many from his own country thus countrymen, or the 25-50 million Russians killed defending themselves and Europe from Hitler).  But you are not the only one.  Saddam Hussein who was so well courted and treated by the US was callled the Hitler of the Middle East - it helps to stir up passion for war and blind people to the true reality of power politics and war.  I think even Nasser was referred to as the Mussolini of the arab world. 

There are plenty of tyrants shooting, beating and torturing their own people - Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Sudan to name but a few and yet we are selective in who we condemn.  The US fifth fleet is based in Bahrain.  Saudi Arabia has public beheadings of women committing adultery and other 'criminals'.  But not a peap out of the US or my two countries Canada and England.  We just keep seling them weapons and prison complexes,, training them in torture at Fort Benning School of the Americas in Georgia (I believe) and drilling for and buying their oil and strategically controlling sea shipping lanes because China receives a major portion of it's oil by sea.

Plus ca change!  But it must change!

Everyone on this thread seems to be quite aware of the political, economical challenges in the world today and everyone on this thread is talking about the need to change.

So I have one question...

Is anyone doing anything about this?

Does anyone have a strategy to contribute all their knowledge and ideas to help these issues?

Feedback much appreciated. :)

Well as an individual or a small/medium/large group without hands on the levers of military manufacturers, oil refiners or governments (even our own, even when we vote for one that promises one thing and delivers another) it is difficult to do something/anything.  I hope that the sort of discussion and sources of information I and others provide might lead others to distrust their government's motives, the accounts in the media and perhaps change the way people vote and perhaps also insist on recalls of candidates and a more proportional voting system.  This is what I hope/strategise for the future.

Specifically for today and Libya, I think DBS (disinvestment, boycott and sanctions) might be a good idea.  It took a while but it worked in South Africa.  But you can't stop there because now as many say racial apartheid has been replaced by economic apartheid (see R.W. Johnson's 'South Africa's Brave New World: http://www.amazon.com/South-Africas-Brave-New-World/dp/1590204107/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302787061&sr=1-1 - I bought my copy at Payot in Geneva).  We can call on our governments to do this and to promote diplomacy.  Whether we as individuals can boycott Libyan products, I do not know.  I only know Libya as a producer of oil and gas.

How about you?  Any ideas?

@"Politicians don't do it despite everybody's wishes."

Not everybody's but most.

Yes, politicians do this and so do UN officials as well.  Marx and Engels had a great term for this: "alienated social power." Hobbes earlier discussed the same issue Leviathan where the King is vested with the people's power but they cannot take it back -- not without a mighty struggle.

For most people, as long as the price of gas is relatively low, most of the white population has employment, and a very low percentage of their sons and daughter are engaged in international conflicts, the country remains relatively stable.  This is the more or less agreed upon social compact.

In addition, the politicians and military have become much more adept in cowing the media through "embedding" them and keeping most of the horrors of war off general television.

Finally, the intense focus on the US and its power projection leaves European countries and other nations virtually free to pursue their own politico-military adventures. 

Sorry, I meant for most people in the US. 

To repeat (paraphrase more likely) a well worn phrase (almost a cliche) 'Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.  Here is an excellent essay on the failures of American foreign policy and those who conduct it giving recent and earlier (Pentagon Papers and the Vietnam War) examples:

War is the Biggest Power Grab of All

America's Know-Nothing Policymakers

By JAMES BOVARD

http://counterpunch.org/bovard04142011.html

The United States is attacking Libya based on vague hopes that peace will triumph after the NATO bombing ceases. There are plenty of reasons to doubt whether a few hundred cruise missiles will beget harmony in the Libyan desert. But one of the biggest mistakes would be to assume that U.S. government policymakers understand what they are doing.

The American media have already uncorked “surprises,” such as the facts that the Libyan opposition is a ragtag mob, not an army, and that Qaddafi’s opponents include organizations formally labeled as terrorists by the U.S. government. But this is only the tip of iceberg of official idiocy.

The latest follies are part of a long bipartisan tradition. In the decades since John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, foreign-policy makers have become Washington’s leading con men. Even though Whiz Kids and Dream Teams have dragged America into one debacle after another, the media and politicians still defer to the latest batch of “Best and Brightest” professors and appointees. 

"The UN Security Council never approved a military mission to overthrow the Libyan government. Neither did Congress or the American people. The U.S. public has very different feelings about "using military force to protect civilians" and "using military force to remove Qaddafi." In a recent Quinnipiac University poll, voters said by a 65 to 27 percent margin that "the U.S. should use military force to protect civilians," while splitting 46 to 45 percent on whether protecting Libyan civilians from Qaddafi is a goal worth having U.S. troops "fight and possibly die."

But they said by a margin of 48 to 41percent the United States should not use military force to remove Gaddafi from power. By a margin of 61 to 30 percent respondents believed that removing Gaddafi is not worth having American troops "fight and possibly die."

Thus, depending on the involvement and risk to U.S. soldiers, the public would strongly support or be evenly divided on what the administration has told them it is doing; but it opposes or strongly opposes what the administration is actually doing".

By ROBERT NAIMAN

http://counterpunch.org/naiman04142011.html

Giankee,

What are the facts you have to call Gaddaffi a criminal and thief? Only the news you are fed by CNN and the likes I presume... He doles money out to many nations and universities around the world (that is called philanthropist). His country is one of the best in Africa - if not the best. Tell me how many Libyan nationals you have met here in Europe or America... They don't leave their country to live in Western nations. Majority of Libyans are very well satisfied, and better paid. Why do you have many other African, Asian and Lebanese nationals living and working in Libya? I will tell you. Standard of living in Libya is at par to that of many western nations. I was priviledged to have studied with a Libyan national in Finland. The guy went back home immediately after his education. I am still in Europe because my country Nigeria could not give me what Libya was able to give this guy.

Yesterday 13th of April on CNN, they courageous showed the world how the Libyan government took their correspondents to the city to interview people. They were told to just go anywhere around and select whoever they wish for their interview (no sensoring). The result: everyone intervied (men and women) said they will fight the rebels and any international invasion on their land. They all pledged their support for Gaddafi, based on his antecedents.

These were ordinary people, civilians. I am very sorry, but you have been fed too much lies and you need to take control of your own mind-set while making judgement. Libya is no Ivory Coast. You take out Gaddafi and you will have two Libya. You let Gaddafi be and still continue to support the rebels, you will have two Libya. So, as things are now, the world has created caos in Libya, and the world must live with it.

Solution to Libya situation will be the division of the country into East and West. No other solution. The sleeping dog has been woken, and the hungry lion will have no peace where many more hungry hienas are sprolling around it.

Regards, Bola

He he hee...

Because everyone hates him, you too you must also hate him...? I am amussed!

All other nations that voted for the resolution were muscled into doing so - its all about oil price. We all saw that the Arab nations tried to back out of the resolution immediately after. No African nation is publicly supporting what is happening in Libya. Would you be happy that when most nations start to hate Isreal, then it would be justified to erase (better word - to drive out) Isreal out of Palestine's land?

Let people for heaven's sake start using their mental height!

Regards, Bola

Ivet

I must dissagree with you again.

First, Bush & Blair victimized their own people by plunging the money that should be used to develop social welfare for American & British people into war dungeon. This is why I love Finland with one of the best welfare package for its people. They will never plunge Finnish money into war.

Secondly. Libya's system of government is known as Jamahiriya and is legally based on the legislative General People's Congress (GPC), consisting of 2,700 representatives of Basic People's Congresses, and the executive General People's Committee, headed by a General Secretary, who reports to the Prime Minister and the President. - Get more from Wikipedia.

What do you call democratic system? What is democracy? In your belief - and that of many others too - democracy is absolutely the kind and type that is practiced in the West.

But haloo..., there are many different kinds and versions of democracy, even dated back in the stone ages, and what should be practiced in other nations should not be absolutely the same as what is practiced in the West. India is the largest democratic nation in the world, their own fashion difers.

Democracy is synonymous to cultural heritage. Would you ask me to drop my culture for your own?

Me thinking....

"What do you call democratic system? What is democracy? In your belief - and that of many others too - democracy is absolutely the kind and type that is practiced in the West."

it's always this boring west arrogance where we think we have the only truth, and this about a lot of subjects... maybe one day we will grow in humility and try to listen to others needs or experiences...

An excerpt from an interesting article on the West’s approach to Libya and the rest of the world crying out for democracy.  There are also links to other intersting articles on related subjects.

Autocratic Deafness

by Robert C. Koehler

The Arab Spring — which indeed is a global spring — is a struggle, an upheaval, for fundamental justice and humanity. That’s the problem.

We —the Washington Consensus, the post-colonial West, the world’s military and economic overlords — have no more enthusiasm for this awakening, this cry for genuine democracy and equitable distribution of resources, than the tottering autocrats of the Middle East, most of whom (exception: Muammar Gaddafi) are our allies.

In an excellent analysis of the Libyan situation last month at muftah.org, Mohammed Bamyeh, a University of Wisconsin sociology professor, wrote: “Just as in other parts of the region, Libyan society over the last decade has become more modern than its regime. As in Tunisia and Egypt, a key factor in galvanizing the Libyan revolution was autocratic deafness to this fact.”

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/14-3

I suggest we send them to Turkey, they made some space in the 1915 and still applying discrimination against Christians, so they should even rejoice in welcoming some of their co-faith people!

Apart from that, I like Turkey very much but you were looking for it!

Perhaps you don’t recognise when someone is using analogies and being ‘tongue in cheek’. Surprising for someone who has studied English literature.

As for the former Ottoman empire and its remnants as present day Turkey, they did make space by massacring Armenians, Greeks and others.  They also lost a lot of space fighting the Russians, the British, the Armenians and the Greeks who all were interested in the region for the own geopolitical and economic interests.  You can read this in the English version of A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, by the Turkish historian Taner Akçam (Available at Payot in Geneva for CHF 25.90 and I would hope/expect in Zurich's bookstores). (“History owes Akçam a debt of honour for this meticulous and courageous expose of one of the greatest unacknowledged war crimes of the 20th century.  He leaves the reader in no doubt that the Armenian massacres of 1915 were state sponsored genocide” – Saul David) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_David

As for Turkish discrimination against Christians I am unaware of this and have not read any authoritative sources on this phenomenon.  Perhaps you could recommend some books or on-line sources please and in the meantime I will gooogle.

Many people including the Jewish Anti-Defamation League refused to recognise the Armenian genocide, the first Holocaust of the 20th century.

Excerpted from:

Reflections From Istanbul

American Celebrity and Armenian Genocide

By JEFF HOWISON

Istanbul.

(Jeff Howison teaches sociology and history at Yeditepe University in Istanbul.)

http://counterpunch.org/howison04152011.html

“Imagine the following statement: "In light of this month's commemoration of the genocide of Armenians in Anatolia during World War I, we at Turkish Cosmo have decided to feature a Turkish model on our cover rather than Kim Kardashian, who is the most recognizable celebrity of the Armenian diaspora."

Perhaps his years as analyst for The People's Court has softened his keen understanding of legal issues around the world, but Levin's statement that "it is a crime in Turkey to even talk about an Armenian genocide" is not correct. But yes, as every student of history and every observer of contemporary politics surely knows, the subject remains divisive and controversial in Turkey. In his book, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, the Turkish historian Taner Akçam discusses the relationship between the founding of the Turkish Republic and the issue of genocide. "As in every other nation-state, the Turks glorified their founding fathers…In general, Turkish society is disinclined to consider its past. In the prevailing culture, not only the Armenian genocide but much of Turkey's recent history is consigned to silence, the Kurdish question and the role of the military being two examples." Indeed, it can be dangerous to evoke genocide. But "talking about an Armenian genocide" is not illegal in Turkey. Levin, I believe, has in mind Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which is also quite controversial. It is an unnervingly broad law that is enforced selectively and which criminalizes the act of insulting the Turkish government or the Turkish nation (before it was reworded a few years ago, the law referred to denigrating "Turkishness"). This law has been used to prosecute several high profile intellectuals, activists, and politicians, including Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish author who won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature. Charges were brought against Pamuk for his remarks to a Swiss magazine, "Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here [in Turkey], and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do." The charges were eventually dropped, although he was ordered last month to pay 6,000 Turkish Liras (about $4,000) in fines.

The most well-known martyr of the Armenian issue in Turkey is the journalist Hrant Dink. Dink was, of course, the Turkish-Armenian journalist who spoke openly about not only the genocide, but about broader issues of freedom and democracy in Turkey. He was shot and killed outside of his office in Istanbul on January 19, 2007. Although the suspect in the case was (at the time) a 17-yeard old kid, there are obvious connections to the shadowy forces of ultra-nationalism, most egregiously in light of the chilling photographs that surfaced of the boy smiling and posing with Turkish police while he was in their custody shortly after the assassination. Dink was also critical of the Armenian diaspora, particularly in the United States, because of the energy and resources spent trying to convince the United States government to recognize the genocide (absurd, not only to my mind but to many others', in light of the fact that U.S. has never recognized its own genocide of the Native Americans) and simultaneously failing to engage the Armenians in Armenia and Turkey and more meaningful actions. When hundreds of thousands of people living in Turkey poured into Istanbul's Taksim Square after news of Dink's assassination, they created a slogan of solidarity: "We are all Armenians." They did not call for the United States government to recognize the genocide of 1915. They did not protest celebrities of Armenian descent appearing on fashion magazine covers.

In The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, Norman Finkelstein has argued that the memorializing of genocide is deeply rooted in the relative power of various special interest and lobby groups, and that these often are intertwined with international power relations between nation-states. It is worth noting that the Anti-Defamation League long refused to recognize the Armenian genocide, and even fired its New England regional director Andrew H. Tarsy in 2007 over the issue. The Jewish lobby in the United States refused to accept the Armenian genocide for several reasons. Not only is one of the central tenants of the "Holocaust Industry" that the Nazi genocide of the Jews during the Second World War remains a singular historical event that is by definition incomparable, but more importantly, that Turkey was a geo-political ally of Israel. In light of the perception that Turkey is gradually abandoning "the West", including its long-standing alliance with Israel–a trend that remains, for now, more perception than reality–perhaps we might expect more anti-Turkish rhetoric from new sources, including various lobby groups like the ADL, which recently reversed its long-held position on the Armenian genocide. Perhaps Turkey should pass legislation recognizing the Native American genocide in the United States”.

Excerpted from:

By NICOLA NASSER

(Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.)

http://www.counterpunch.org/nasser01132011.html

Ever since the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204, Arab Christians in the Muslim world have been wary of the messages and emissaries of Rome as a cultural spearhead of foreign invasion and hegemony. Even a Catholic loyal to the Vatican like the incumbent Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, had this to tell the Israeli Haaretz exclusively four days before Benedict XVI's "pilgrimage" to the Holy Land in September 2009: "The thing that worries me most is the speech that the pope will deliver here. One word for the Muslims and I'm in trouble; one word for the Jews and I'm in trouble. At the end of the visit the pope goes back to Rome and I stay here with the consequences." Patriarch Twal's fears were vindicated last week when Egypt recalled its Vatican envoy for consultations over the Pope's remarks on Egyptian Copts: The "new statements from the Vatican" are "unacceptable interference" in Egypt's "internal affairs," the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement. Syrian analyst Sami Moubayed recently wrote that similar papal remarks were to the "fundamentalists .. a blessing in disguise."

Pope Benedict XVI since he occupied the papacy seat seems totally insensitive to the worries of his representative in Jerusalem; he doesn't seem short of words and seems careful not to miss an opportunity to utter provocative anti-Muslim pronouncements that place both his church clergy and followers on the defensive among both their Christian as well as Muslim compatriots. However, he places them in a more critical position by his helplessness to find any words or an opportunity in his latest torrential rhetoric about the protection of Christians and their plight in Holy Land itself, where they have been victims of actual ethnic and religious cleansing for more than sixty years now since the Palestinian Nakba in 1948, when the state of Israel was declared independent on the ruins of their homes.

Oh, yes, the armenian genocide, that was just what I was referring to. Yes, please google it and find whatever you want to find and hear as anyway this is what you do best :-)

Sarah

Shoot the messenger!  Bravo!  Well done!

Actually I don't google that often but your claim about Turkish discrimination against Christians - which by the way you haven't provide me any sources supporting that claim - sparked my interest in the subject and I am grateful to you for another subject to investigate through reading various sources.

Karl Marx

Hey I am good at googling the Turkish discrimination against Christians (and not about the Armenian genocide which I didn't originally suggest googling if you had read my post).  But then as you have suggested to Translator you don't have the time to read and find it boring (or at least the references she provided).  How is it possible to find something boring if you haven't read it?  Do you find movies you've never seen, countries you've never visited, boring?  Do you find rational fact-based and logical discussion boring?  I should stop here as I'm sure I'm boring you with alll these questions!

Before naively believing that a Turkish national defaming the Turkish Empire would be mathematical proof to a very controversial topic which, just like the kurdish interests, have been fueled and controlled by black propaganda originating from colonial powers for a few centuries now, one must ask himself the question: what does a Turkish academic have to gain by being a self denouncing slave to external interests and balance of power politics concerning the world's most geostrategic region?

The answer: in some cases a Nobel prize, in others a much greater salary than any Turkish institution would care to pay this charlatan...

hihihi - you are indeed very funny. Where did you hide that super sense of humour all this time?

Yes the google thing was meant for the Christian discrimination.

Have you ever done statistics? If yes, then you'll know that data can be manipulated to reflect what someone wants to show. In the same way there are thousands of people who kind of manipulate facts or interpret them their own way and then report them as being very logical. At the end of the day, nobody has the full picture ever! 

There are some subjects where going into too much depth does not interest me much and where a general understanding is enough to satisfy my curiosity as my time on this earth is limited and would like to do many things and indeed learn about many things that I don't know yet.

I have learned much through these discussions we have had here, thanks for your contribution.

Regards

Sarah

It is because some people just type to their keyboards for the sake of posting... no fact finding, no constructive analysis, and no coherent understanding of the subject matter. But, such is the world we live in -- instigating, supporting, and going into wars with little or no knowledge of why and the concequencies/aftermatch of the wars -- and we must be compassionate enough to read their lines with such exclamation as... "Hmmmm...."

Regards, Bola

No mathematical proofs needed.

Just a heavily referenced text with use of and refence to the Austrian Foreign Office Archive, Directorate of Tribes and Immigration in the Ottoman Interior Ministry, The Grand National Assembly of Turkey among many other sources of historical data.

Shoot the messenger!  Bravo and congratulations on the bulls eye shot!

Altuğ Taner Akçam (born October 23, 1953) is a Turkish historian[1] and sociologist. He is one of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge and openly discuss the Armenian Genocide,[2] and is recognized as a "leading international authority" on the subject.[3]

Akçam argues for an attempt to reconcile the differing Armenian and Turkish narratives of the genocide, and to move away from the behaviour which uses those narratives to support national stereotypes. "We have to re-think the problem and place both societies in the centre of our analysis. This change of paradigm should focus on creating a new cultural space that includes both societies, a space in which both sides have the chance to learn from each other." (Akcam, 2004, p. 262).[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taner_Ak%C3%A7am

What’s in it for David Barsamian, Robert Fisk and Peter Balakian to write about the Armenian Genocide?  Nobel prizes and a greater salary?

http://www.alternativeradio.org/programpacks/ARME.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Balakian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Barsamian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk

Have a look inside ‘A Shameful Act’ by Altuğ Taner Akçam at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Shameful-Act-Armenian-Genocide-Responsibility/dp/080508665X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302957244&sr=1-1

I haven't been hiding my sense of humour so long - I've been annoying and sometimes entertaining people with it since a child.

Yes I've done statistics and studied epidemiology as well and work with statistics in my work in the pharamaceutical industry.  I always maintain statistics don't lie but people do. So I am in agreement with you on that part.

With your logic about people manipulating facts and interpreting them their own way one can draw a few conclusions.  The Jewish Holocaust did not happen, Chernobyl did not lead to the death of close to a million people in the years subsequent to it, Fuk-u -shima nuclear disaster is nothing to worry about etc.  Or we can just give up reading and thinking, making up our minds and forming opinions of our own.  Leave it up to the state perhaps - Orwell would be proud (besides being a great writer e.g. Homage to Cataloinia, The Road to Wigan Pier, Down and Out in London and Paris, he was a WWII English propogandist by the way).(You and/or others might appreciates these films how others do shape our perceptions: http://metanoia-films.org/index.php) Let's fire all the historians, lawyers, accountants - in fact everybody since you can't trust anyone and certainly don't have the time to do background checks on them and what they claim.

I agree with you about the limited time in life and we do all make choices about what we choose to do.  I haven't the slightest interest in particle physics nor string theory.

My postings when I reply to you and not, are not only directed at you but to others who might find the information I provide worth pursuing or not.  It is their choice.  I too have learned a lot from many people in various forums and that is why I am so happy the glocals managers have provide this service and enjoy it immensely.

Best regards.

I have enjoyed communicating with you and your contributions to never ending debates/discussions.

Mark (who exists - the origin of Marksist though I took literay freedom by substituting the x by an s.  And I've never read anything by Karl Marx by the way)

Excellent commentary on how some people "debate" on the internet and how our "leaders" plunge our nations into wars and conflicts using neither their own money nor their own children.

Hi All,

To be honest, I felt quite offended with the post from Mr Bola. But then, after re-considering, I also was not so nice with some of my posts and I must admit I may have not added so much value with the latest posts, so fair enough, I will try to improve that - at the same time apology to anyone I offended before with some posts.

So here I am trying to make up for it.

I was following the news when the coalition started on Kaddafi and it really atstounded me as for many years when the petrol was flowing, Kaddafi was Europe's best friend, even when Switzerland had problem with Libyia, nobody in Europe did support Switzerland, but then as soon as Kaddafi started damaging his own pipelines at the start of the conflict because he felt european let-down and as soon as he started talking to Russia and China about giving the european petrol parts to them, suddenly Europe is there to free the libyan people. I must say from my point of view it seems that the coalition is not there for the lbyan but more by fear of loosing the precious petrol. 

With regards to Spring revolution in the arab countries, I am curious to see how it will evolve as so far it sounds that many people are very enthusiastic about these revolutions but what will really follow and anyway what are people there really looking for apart from getting rid of the current government? Would their cultural definition of democracy (with ref to previous discussions) include sharia law for example and in such case, can we still call that democracy?  In Wikipedia when looking up democracy, I found the following interesting sentence:

While there is no specific, universally accepted definition of 'democracy', equality and freedom have both been identified as important characteristics of democracy since ancient times.

Regards,

Sarah - the pain in the neck :-)

Well said!  These guys seem to know more than the politicians, academics, generals, the media and their pundits/experts.

Do you really think they don't know what they're doing? No sure about that...

It's all about power and money in the name of god or democracy... War is just a business...

Oh they know.  That's why I don't believe in the bullshit of 'Speaking Truth to Power'.  No need - they know the truth already!

They know.  That's why we have psyops and propganda.  Pentagon planted articles in the press and embedded (in bed with) media.

http://metanoia-films.org/watchonline.php

Sarah,

As you must have noticed here on the forum, only a handful concur with any of my positions. So, I may as well be another Gaddafi -- everyone hates him, you remember ;).

My last post was not directed to you as a person. Rather, it was an outburst of my own personal frustration in regards to events around the world and the fact that we as "humans", we need to remember that learning process is an everlasting un-ending process. We need to be gratetful to the messengers that feed us with factual information that ordinarily will not be available to us, and finally, I am neither a historian nor a political scientist, but I have kin interest in current events and a good inclination to past events -- which of course is known as history -- non the less, I enjoy smart debates.

Regards, Bola.

one love

I woke up this morning to listen to 7 o'clock news from CNN. My reason to get up early on a Sunday morning was because Nigeria – the most populous and biggest black nation in the world – was at the polls yesterday 16.04.2011 to choose a new president for the country.

Alas. I was surprised. No word about Nigerian election. Meanwhile, CNN's reporting yesterday before the election made one to believe they were eagerly awaiting to see what will happen in the country or during the process.

Since no "sensational" news of rigging and violence during and after the elections (that does not mean none exist, but not sensational enough), CNN suddenly develops cold fever, and lost words. I am left to get updated from other sources or best to go back to my sweet sleep.

Bola

Perhaps something more important came up like Charlie Sheen's new road show and its reception!

Not my favorite source of information but rather a source of telling me something is going on somewhere - and then I seek analysis elsewhere - is the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13102541

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13102541

Markist has faster fingers, apparently..

Strong competiton encourages better performance!

Kram (the lysdexic)

So the Brits, the French and the Italians are sending 'advisers' to Libya.  Reminds me of a war in Viet Nam when advisers were sent there and other advisers sent to Central and South American countries over the years.

What will the Brits, French or Italians do should one of their military advisers get killed by the Libyan government forces?  A slippery slope that could have been avoided had the little boys not wanted to play like they were big boys.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13143988

British condemn the use of cluster bombs in the above BBC report.

While ratifying the convention on cluster bombs they seemed to have managed to sidestep it.

http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=2237

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-cluster-bombs-britain

“The pattern was the same throughout the Arab world. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was determined that nobody else was going to ride to power on the top of an army tank. After becoming president in 1979, power was concentrated in his extended family, the ferocious security services, and the Ba'ath party. In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi went a step further, after his unsuccessful war in Chad in the 1980s, when he largely dissolved the Libyan army.

I have spent the past 10 days in Libya and before that I was in Egypt. The differing course of the Arab Awakening in each country is significant. In Egypt, as in Tunisia, the establishment felt it could stay in business if it let the Mubarak and Ben Ali regimes go. In Cairo, there is talk of what "began as a revolution ending up in a military coup", since it was the army that finally forced out Mubarak. In Libya, as in Syria, the regime and the state could not be divided. Disaffected members of the establishment, such as the head of Special Forces Abdul Fattah Younis and foreign minister Moussa Koussa, had to defect rather than try to replace Gaddafi from within.

Absence of a professional army in Libya means that the rebels have to rely on long-retired soldiers to train new recruits. At the 17 February Camp in Benghazi last week a grizzled former sergeant, Nuri Tawi, who had retired 22 years ago after service in Lebanon, Chad and Rwanda, was trying without much success to show several dozen young men how to load a machine gun. Gaddafi has more trained troops but not enough to take and hold cities such as Ajdabiya and Misrata.

Over the past 20 years the Arab police states became quasi-monarchies with elderly rulers seeking to hand on power to their sons. Benghazi is littered with the abandoned projects of Gaddafi's sons, such as the palatial, almost completed Regency Hotel. Gaddafi's regal pretensions did not prevent him insisting on study of his Green Book's radical adages. Not surprisingly, the centre where it was studied, an attractive white crown-like structure, is burnt out. One Benghazi resident complained: "My cousin had to re-do a whole three-month term of his computer engineering course because he failed the section on the Green Book."

The political landscape is changing in North Africa and the Middle East both within states and in their relations with the outside world. In Egypt, any new government is likely to be less close to the US and Israel. In Libya, the opposition is weak militarily, but Gaddafi is likely to go down because of the strength of Nato backing for the rebels. It is dubious if foreign domination of an oil state such as Libya will ebb away after Gaddafi and his family have gone”.

( read more here: http://counterpunch.org/patrick04202011.html )

Pathetic, absolutely desperados!

I watched BBC debating the Libyan spokesperson yesterday night. It was bizarre! Its all the same, be it CNN or BBC, just name it. No one is ready to listen to the Libyan authority anymore.

Then again, UK, France and Italy are sending "military advisers" into Libya. This is absurd, an outrageous and desperate move to start their unilateral incursion into Libya. Marksist asked what would happen if one member of their team get killed. Answer: Then they just got the official reason to fully enter into the country and carry out the military coup themselves. It is clear that the West has already failed with all their fire-power raining on Libya. There is no way, absolutely no way the rebels can be able to topple Gaddafi without the military assistance of the West.

The question we will now have to ask (maybe after another one month), will have to do with "how would the West bulldoze their way into Tripoli", knowing fully well that majority of the people from western Libya will be ready to fight them. Another Iraq in play...

Also, the Libyan government accused the West of stealing their oil. Yes, I say that is exactly what is happening there. You can not collaborate with rebels to sell oil when there is still a genuine government in place. That is stealing, robbery!

Regards. Bola

Lest I be clear:

I belief that rebels are rebels (group of people rising/carrying weapons/arms against their government). They must be treated as rebels and nothing other than that.

Revolution is what we saw in Egypt, Tunisia and now presently happening in Yemen. It is not the episode playing out in Benghazi - call it Libya.

I am still looking for a country where democracy has been achieved latey with the barels of gun. Anyone know of any?

Regards. Bola.

UN Security Council Resolutuions 1970 and 1973

http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/245/58/PDF/N1124558.pdf?OpenElement

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10200.doc.htm#Resolution

Libya in the Face of Humanitarian Imperialism

By GRÉGOIRE LALIEU

Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium and is  a member of the Brussels Tribunal. His book, Humanitarian  Imperialism, is published by Monthly Review Press.

Can you remind us of what humanitarian imperialism consists of ?

Jean Bricmont: It is an ideology which aims to justify military interference against sovereign countries in the name of democracy and Human Rights. The motive is always the same : a population is the victim of a dictator, so we must act. Then all the usual references are trotted out : the Second World War, the war with Spain, and so on. The aim being to sell the argument that an armed intervention is necessary. This is what happened in Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan.

And now comes Libya’ s turn.

There is a difference here because a United Nations Security Council resolution makes it possible. But this resolution was passed against the principles of the Charter of the United Nations themselves. Indeed, I see no external threat in the Libyan conflict. Although the notion of the “responsibility to protect” populations had been evoked, many short cuts were taken. Besides, there is no proof that Gaddafi massacres his people just for the sole purpose of slaughtering them. It is a bit more complicated than that : it is an armed insurrection, and I know not of any government that would not repress an insurrection of this kind. Of course, there are collateral damage and civilian casualties. But if the United States knows a way to avoid such damage, then it should go and tell the Israelis about it, and apply it themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also no doubt that coalition bombings are causing cause civilian casualties.

( full article here: http://counterpunch.org/lalieu04212011.html )

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/war_protestors_arrested_at_han.html

I think this post shouldn't be posted in Geneva- General.......

How the ICC (and ICTY) work to transform NATO agression into police actions to target 'war criminals'!

What Does the ICC Stand For?

The Imperialist Crime Cover-Up

By DIANA JOHNSTONE

Last May 16, Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, officially sought an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moammer Kadhafi for “crimes against humanity”. Also accused were the leader’s son Seif al-Islam Kadhafi and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi.

U.S. jurist David Scheffer told Agence France Presse: “NATO will doubtless appreciate the ICC investigation and indictment of top Libyan leaders, including Kadhafi.”

Well, yes. And nobody is better placed to know what NATO appreciates than David Scheffer.

The day before, Tripoli had made yet another offer of a truce, calling for an end to NATO bombing and for peace negotiations with the armed rebels based in Benghazi. NATO’s response took the form of the ICC indictment. When NATO bombs a country to unseat a leader, the targeted leader must be treated like a common criminal. His place cannot be at the negotiating table, but behind bars. An international indictment handily transforms NATO’s military aggression into a police action to arrest “an indicted war criminal” – an expression that evacuates the presumption of “innocent until proven guilty”.

This is a familiar pattern.

(continue reading more here)

http://counterpunch.org/johnstone06022011.html

Michel Collon another Belgian (another one ) writer, journalist, and historian. In a short video (with English subtitles) took from Michel Collon's appearence on French television. He speaks about the intervention in Libya, the media-lies applied to the wars and the difference between a "good Arab" and a "bad Arab".

http://www.michelcollon.info/Michel-Collon-about-the.html

According to him "The good Arab is the one on his knees and giving his oil to the U.S. This Arab can treat women as slaves, commit torture, terrorism and anybody can do anything against him, because he will always thank the United States and Mr. Sarkozy. "

He is a bit too provocative in my taste

I only went to the 7 and a half minute mark but I think he gets it exactly right about the hypocrisy of the left and right in their selective humanitarian interventions. I would prefer to see no interventions other than for western governments who support tyrants or allows their weapons firms to arm them, to intervene and stop their own tacit support. Soon those regimes would fall. Would they get their weapons from elsewhere? Perhaps but there are sea and other embargos plus diplomacy to be used to discourage other non-western nations from taking up the slack. No such system is perfect but it would help in my opinion and certainly business as usual will only help to fortify these tyrannical regimes.

I wish we had more provocative types who challenged the established wisdoms of the right and left!