Archive
Updates on Libyan war: March 31
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China, Russia Should Prevent West Further Abusing Libya Resolution
Miguel D’Escoto: United Nations Has Become Lethal Weapon Of The Empire
Gates, Mullen: Top U.S. Defense, Military Officials Warn Of Protracted Libya Conflict
Libyan War: 16 NATO Members Contribute Warplanes And Warships
Sweden: NATO’s Loyal Cohort In Libyan, Afghan Wars
Libyan War: NATO In Full Charge, Future Remains Uncertain
Vatican Envoy To Libya: NATO Air Strikes “Killing Dozens Of Civilians”
NATO Could Repeat Balkans (And Afghan, Iraq) Scenario In Libya
Leading Russia MP: NATO Could Be Defeated In Libyan Ground War
NATO Takes Over Full Command Of Libyan War
Doubts Over Purpose Of Libyan Military Intervention Intensify
Libya: U.S.-NATO Ground Operations More Likely
NATO Assumes Full Command Of Libyan War Operations
Obama Authorizes Covert Operations In Libya, CIA Already There
CIA And MI6 Aiding Libyan War Effort On The Ground
Poll: Americans Oppose Obama’s Libyan War, Ratings At All-Time Low
Defense Minister: NATO’s Libyan Operation Costs Greece $9 Million A Month
Venezuela On Libya: No Peace With Bombs, West Eyes Oil Reserves
NATO Air Strike Kills Libyan Infant
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China, Russia Should Prevent West Further Abusing Libya Resolution
http://en.huanqiu.com/opinion/editorial/2011-03/639891.html
Global Times
March 31, 2011
UN resolution legality needs a gatekeeper
-China should unite with Russia in requiring the US, Britain and France to respect Security Council resolutions. As the Security Council president this month, China should hold an emergency meeting at the ambassadorial level, and demand announcements about air strikes and plans for future intervention.
-The world must not allow the West to act unchecked, especially when using the name of the UN. They should hear the voices of opposition and face the problems they cause.
On March 29, Gaddafi’s army recaptured two cities. This new twist to the Libyan military situation has heaped political embarrassment on the West.
It is now time to prevent the West from further abusing Security Council Resolution No. 1973.
The Western powers have acted beyond the resolution. Although the leaders of the US, Britain and France have said their military actions are only aimed at establishing a no-fly zone, the Western air strikes have directly attacked Libyan government forces and provided air support for the opposition.
They have jointly demanded Gaddafi to step down immediately, which has nothing to do with Security Council resolutions.
In the absence of China, Russia, the African Union and most members of the Arab League, the London conference centered around the political landscape of the “post-Gaddafi era.”
This countermands the authority of the United Nations and goes against the Western declaration of “letting Libyan people determine by themselves.”
The intensification of Western direct military intervention could force Gaddafi to step down soon. But the West has two obstacles: the Security Council resolution does not grant them such authority and they have to consider public opinion. The greater the opposition of global opinion, the more hesitant the West will be.
China should unite with Russia in requiring the US, Britain and France to respect Security Council resolutions. As the Security Council president this month, China should hold an emergency meeting at the ambassadorial level, and demand announcements about air strikes and plans for future intervention. The Council should ask the West to guarantee no expansion of military operations.
China should let French President Sarkozy know that the air strikes he defends are widely opposed in China. If he is a president with political honor, he should face the questions posed by Chinese media and guarantee that he will abide by Resolution 1973.
The world must not allow the West to act unchecked, especially when using the name of the UN. They should hear the voices of opposition and face the problems they cause.
Maintenance of the Security Council resolution can achieve a moral high ground. China and Russia abstained, which does not mean the US, Britain and France gained carte blanche. China, Russia, Brazil and other emerging countries should take actions to let these three countries understand this.
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Miguel D’Escoto: United Nations Has Become Lethal Weapon Of The Empire
http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=276625&Itemid=1
Prensa Latina
March 31, 2011
D’Escoto: The United Nations is a Deadly U.S.Weapon
Ana Julia Suarez Cruz
United Nations: Former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel D’Escoto, now appointed as the representative of Libya to the UN, said Thursday that the United Nations has become a “lethal weapon of the Empire (United States).”
USA Reportedly Supplied Weapons to Libyan Rebels
“We have to get it back, because if it dies it will not be born again,” warned D’Escoto, who was president of the 63rd period of sessions of the UN General Assembly (2008-2009).
In an interview with Prensa Latina in New York, D’Escoto, a Catholic priest, said the UN is dysfunctional, unable to fulfill the goals for which it was created.
D’Escoto harshly criticized UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, accusing him of betraying the UN Charter.
In that sense, he did not rule out coordination between the UN secretary general and the host country (the United States) to prevent former Libyan Foreign Minister Ali Treki from the entering U.S. territory.
Treki, who chaired the UN General Assembly until last September, was appointed Libyan ambassador to the UN two weeks ago by President Muammar Gaddafi, but he did not receive a U.S. visa to travel to New York.
“I don’t know what kind of effort Ban Ki-moon made with respect to that visa, as part of his duty as UN leader,” said D’Escoto .
Now, the appointment of D’Escoto as Libyan representative is in doubt, after the U.S. representative to the UN, Susan Rice, claimed the Nicaraguan does not have a diplomatic visa.
Following the statement by Rice, the UN press office cancelled a Thursday press conference with D’Escoto that had been announced on Wednesday by UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.
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Gates, Mullen: Top U.S. Defense, Military Officials Warn Of Protracted Libya Conflict
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0d99f8a0-5bb4-11e0-b8e7-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ICkFFsOM
Financial Times
March 31, 2011
Gates warns on protracted Libya conflict
By Daniel Dombey in Washington
Nato faces a protracted conflict in Libya, the US’s top two military chiefs signalled on Thursday, even as they promised that Washington would substantially scale down its participation in coming days.
Robert Gates, defence secretary, and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, acknowledged the possibility of a stalemate as they sought to square growing congressional discontent about the military action with Libyan rebels’ calls for more aid to prevent a rout by Muammer Gaddafi’s forces.
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Appearing at hearing of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Mr Gates said: “We have considered the possibility of this being a stalemate and being a drawn-out affair.” He said there could be an outcome “where you achieve the military goal [of establishing a no-fly zone...] but not achieve the political goal” of ousting Col Gaddafi.
Howard McKeon, the committee’s chairman, warned that Nato “could be expected to support a decade-long no-fly zone enforcement like the one over Iraq in the 1990s,” while a series of other members underlined their doubts about the rebels’ political orientation.
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Libyan War: 16 NATO Members Contribute Warplanes And Warships
Deutsche Prese-Agentur
March 31, 2011
BACKGROUND: 16 NATO members taking part in Libya military action
Brussels: NATO announced on its website Thursday that 16 out of its 28 members were taking part in the mission enforcing a United Nations resolution on Libya, which foresees a no-fly zone, a naval arms embargo and airstrikes….
Albania, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia were exposed as the countries not contributing to the military effort.
NATO did not release information on third countries taking part in the operation. Sweden, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have confirmed separately that they are involved.
NATO indicated that the United States, France, Britain and Italy were the largest contributors to the ‘Unified Protector’ mission.
The full list of contributions was listed as follows:
Belgium: six fighter jets; Britain: 17 jets and two vessels; Bulgaria: one vessel; Canada: 11 jets and one vessel; Denmark: four jets; France: 33 jets and one vessel; Greece: two jets and one vessel; Italy: 16 jets and four vessels; Netherlands: seven jets and one vessel; Norway: six jets; Romania: one vessel; Spain: six jets and two vessels; Turkey: seven jets and six vessels; United States: 90 jets and one vessel.
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Sweden: NATO’s Loyal Cohort In Libyan, Afghan Wars
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-48A34226-82ACED3B/natolive/news_71925.htm
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
March 31, 2011
Secretary General Rasmussen praises Sweden as an effective and reliable partner
On 31 March, Secretary General Rasmussen travelled to Sweden to discuss the excellent cooperation between NATO and Sweden. During his visit, the Secretary General met with H.M. King Carl XVI Gustav, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, Minister of Defence Sten Tolgfors and members of the Foreign Relations and Defence Committees.
Rasmussen thanked Sweden for its planned contribution of 8 Gripen fighter jets and support personnel to NATO’s Operation Unified Protector to protect the Libyan population against the attacks of the Gaddafi regime. “Without prejudging deliberations in the Parliament, I would like to stress the importance of the Swedish contribution. Across the board, Sweden is an active provider of security and stability”, Rasmussen stated.
The Secretary General also highlighted Sweden’s other important contributions. “Sweden is a valuable partner of NATO. Sweden contributes in a very significant way to a number of NATO led operations, such as in Afghanistan and in KFOR. I express my strong appreciation for that”, said the Secretary General in a joint press conference with the Swedish Prime Minister. Mazar-e-Sharif, the city where the Swedish troops are based, is one of the seven districts and provinces where Afghans are starting to take the lead in the coming months. Sweden also provides an important contribution to NATO’s training efforts to build up the Afghan security forces.
The Secretary General also stressed Sweden’s leading role in calling for more cooperation with the EU. In view of the difficult financial climate, both organisations are trying to spend smarter, and it makes sense to work together. Pooling and sharing is the way ahead, Mr Rasmussen said.
Mr. Rasmussen concluded his visit by delivering a key-note speech on “The New NATO and Sweden’s Security” at the Foreign Policy Institute.
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Libyan War: NATO In Full Charge, Future Remains Uncertain
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/31/c_13807850.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 31, 2011
NATO in full charge, future remains elusive
BRUSSELS: NATO on Thursday took full command and control of military operations in Libya from the United States, however, the endgame of the military campaigns remains elusive.
“This transfer is completed. NATO is fully responsible for the military efforts. We have more than 100 fighter and support aircraft and more than a dozens maritime assets from several nations under NATO command,” said Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, commander of the NATO mission, code-named Unified Protector.
Since NATO took full charge of military operations from 0600 GMT on Thursday, it has conducted more than 90 flying sorties and has more than 20 frigates patrolling in the Mediterranean and several supporting vessels, the Canadian general said via video conference from the alliance’s base in Naples, Itlay.
The general said that he hoped the NATO mission, a 90-day military plan, could last shorter, however, the operation would not end until the Libya civilians are no longer attacked.
NATO members agreed on Sunday to take on the whole military operation in Libya under the United Nations Security Council Resolution, ending a week of squabbling over the command structure mainly involving France, Turkey, the United States and Britain.
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NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told reporters that “NATO will do its utmost” to involve all partners in the Libya mission and invite partners to participate.
The chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, said all NATO members had provided “political support” for the mission, and some allies were willing to contribute and deploy military assets, as well as several none-NATO countries.
In addition, while the disputes over the command have settled down, the endgame in Libya remains elusive as participating countries are divided on a series of questions, the ultimate goal of the mission, whether to arm rebels in Libya, and so on.
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Vatican Envoy To Libya: NATO Air Strikes “Killing Dozens Of Civilians”
New York Daily News
March 31, 2011
40 civilians reportedly killed in NATO air strikes on Tripoli; Defense Secretary to address congress
BY Lukas I. Alpert
At least 40 civilians have been killed in NATO air strikes on Tripoli, the Vatican’s top envoy to Libya said Thursday.
“They are killing dozens of civilians,” said Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli. “In the Tajoura neighborhood, around 40 civilians were killed, and a house with a family inside collapsed.”
“In the Buslim neighborhood, due to bombardments, a civilian building came down, although it is not clear how many people were inside.”
Martinelli said that he had not seen any casualties himself, but was relying on reports from “contacts” among Tripoli’s residents.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to tell congress Thursday that Khadafy will ultimately be removed from power but not solely as the result of military force.
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“In my view, the removal of Colonel Khadafy will likely be achieved over time through political and economic measures and by his own people,” Gates said.
“However, this NATO-led operation can degrade Khadafy’s military capacity to the point where he – and those around him – will be forced into a very different set of choices and behaviors in the future.”
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With News Wire Services
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NATO Could Repeat Balkans (And Afghan, Iraq) Scenario In Libya
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/31/48262650.html
Voice of Russia
March 31, 2011
Will NATO apply the Balkan scenario to Libya?
Pyotr Iskenderov
-Resolution 1973 stipulates the use of all measures against the Gaddafi regime, except an occupation. The transition of the ongoing aerial operation to a multinational mission means, as shown by the Kosovo experience, a shift to an occupation under the peacekeeping slogans.
Similar scenarios have been staged by the U.S., Britain and other Western countries also in Afghanistan and Iraq.
-”An allegedly humanitarian intervention by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999 ended with the deployment of NATO forces in Kosovo and the setting up of the largest U.S. base Bondsteel Camp in the province. The U.S. and NATO may repeat this scenario in Libya.”
NATO is discussing the deployment of multinational forces in Libya, said Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. These forces will be under NATO command and will operate as they did in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
The statement by Admiral Stavridis shifts the possible development in Libya onto a new level. It seems that the U.S. and NATO do not consider rendering assistance to the opposition groups in ousting the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as a priority. The Admiral believes that, clearly, there is a wide range of possibilities organizing a mission for stabilizing the situation in Libya under the aegis of NATO.
The West no longer considers the opposition groups as a means to oust Gaddafi for several reasons. Firstly, the opposition groups are very weak and divided. Secondly, according to Admiral Stavridis, al-Qaeda terrorists and pro-Iranian Hezbolla militants are among the rebels. In an interview with the NBC, President Barack Obama indirectly admitted this. He emphasized that there is no guarantee that there are no people who are unfriendly towards the U.S. and its interests among the rebels.
However, that the U.S. and NATO plan to carry out the operation in Libya in line with that of the Kosovo scenario has nothing to do with the state of affairs in the rebel camp.
A deployment of multinational forces on a long-term basis under the aegis of NATO paves the way for Brussels to bypass the only restriction imposed by the UN Security Council on an operation in Libya.
Resolution 1973 stipulates the use of all measures against the Gaddafi regime, except an occupation. The transition of the ongoing aerial operation to a multinational mission means, as shown by the Kosovo experience, a shift to an occupation under the peacekeeping slogans.
Similar scenarios have been staged by the U.S., Britain and other Western countries also in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Their military presence remains despite of restrictions imposed by the U.N.,” says Alexander Karasev, an expert at the Institute of Slavic Studies in an interview with our correspondent:
“The discussion of problems at the UN Security Council is aimed at finding a decision that will satisfy the international community and at the same time the interested parties. However, the latest developments show that the Western powers have lately learned to bypass formal restrictions imposed on them by the UN Charter and UN Security Council decisions. An allegedly humanitarian intervention by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999 ended with the deployment of NATO forces in Kosovo and the setting up of the largest U.S. base Bondsteel Camp in the province. The U.S. and NATO may repeat this scenario in Libya,” Alexander Karasev said.
Speaking at the National Defence University, Barack Obama said that “we should not afraid to use our military swiftly and decisively, also unilaterally when there is a need to defend our people, our country, our allies and our innermost interests.”
Commenting on the speech, an expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Stephen Flanagan, emphasized that the President’s speech had reminded him of the one that President Clinton gave during the Kosovo crisis explaining the reasons that led to the launch of the NATO operation in Yugoslavia. Both presidents emphasized the need for defending the American “innermost and other interests and values that were threatened”.
It’s unclear whether all this has anything to do with humanitarian aims and interests of the Libyan people as stated in by the authors of the UN resolution.
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Leading Russia MP: NATO Could Be Defeated In Libyan Ground War
http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=233186
Interfax
March 31, 2011
Kosachyov fears coalition forces’ involvement in Libya ground operation
MOSCOW: Duma International Affairs Committee chairman Konstantin Kosachyov has not ruled out a ground operation by the coalition forces in Libya.
“Currently, everyone is denying this possibility, however I think that if the coalition continues to lose its soldiers in Libya, sooner or later it could serve as a pretext for invasion,” Kosachyov said in an interview with the Russia Today television channel on Thursday.
Should the ground operation begin, “coalition forces will find themselves trapped, with neither party benefiting from it,” the MP said.
“It will be a defeat for coalition forces. I would not like that to happen, however today this scenario is quite possible,” Kosachyov said.
The terrorist group Al-Qaeda “will attempt to increase its influence in Libya,” he said.
“Such an evolvement of the situation is predictable, and this might become a very serious problem,” the MP said.
“Revolutionaries will not have a chance to quickly take the situation under control after the fall of the regime, which will give external forces a chance to interfere in the situation and seize control. Unfortunately, Al-Qaeda is the most organized among these three regional forces at the moment,” he said.
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NATO Takes Over Full Command Of Libyan War
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-CB7D5874-49B69AA2/natolive/news_71867.htm
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
March 31, 2011
NATO takes command in Libya air operations
On Thursday morning at 0600 GMT, NATO took sole command of international air operations over Libya.
The Alliance has the assets in place to conduct its tasks under Operation Unified Protector – the arms embargo, no-fly zone and actions to protect civilians and civilian centres.
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http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/31/48236881.html
Voice of Russia
March 31, 2011
NATO in charge of Libya operations
NATO has officially assumed command of all operations in Libya, taking over from an international coalition that has been in charge since the 19th of March, a diplomat told the AFP news agency on Thursday.
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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/31/c_13807330.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 31, 2011
NATO takes over full command of military campaign against Libya
BRUSSELS: NATO has taken over full command and control of military operations against Libya from the United States, a NATO official confirmed here on Thursday.
NATO will make an announcement shortly, the official told Xinhua, adding Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, commander of the NATO mission, code-named Unified Protector, would hold a press briefing this afternoon via video conference from the alliance’s base in Naples, Italy.
NATO members agreed on Sunday to take full charge of military operations in Libya, including arms embargo, a no-fly zone and protecting civilians and civilian-populated areas, ending a week of squabbling over the command structure mainly involving France, Turkey, the U.S. and Britain.
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Doubts Over Purpose Of Libyan Military Intervention Intensify
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-03/31/c_13807391.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 31, 2011
Doubts over purpose of Libyan military intervention intensify
BEIJING: With Western-led coalition forces continuing their air strikes in Libya since March 19, doubts over the real purposes and goals of the mission have intensified globally.
The military operation was launched after the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution on March 17 to enforce a no-fly zone on Libya and to take “all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya.
Yet, the military action has raised doubts, despite assurances from Western leaders, such as British Prime Minister David Cameron, who emphasized “the legitimacy, necessity and correctness” of the action.
With the air strikes, launched by major Western powers including France, Britain, the United States, Denmark and Italy, having destroyed Libya’s air defense system and many of the tanks and heavy weapons of Libyan government forces, the doubts have intensified and many believe the mission has gone beyond the U.N. resolution.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa has criticized the international coalition force’s bombing, saying the assaults went beyond the U.N. resolution that endorsed a no-fly zone over Libya.
“What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing civilians,” Moussa said.
African Union (AU) chief Jean Ping has voiced similar disapproved, raising doubts about what would follow after a no-fly zone was “roughly” established.
“What’s the next step? Do you have a roadmap? I don’t see them at all,” he said.
Analysts and observers said the military intervention showed some Western powers were getting involved in the internal conflict in Libya, despite promises they wouldn’t interfere in Libya’s internal affairs.
The Western powers also stressed the importance of finding a political and diplomatic solution to the Libyan crisis, but the so-called “political solution,” which excluded the Gaddafi regime in the first place, was based on the military operation, analysts said.
The plan of the Western powers was to solve the country’s crisis through political solutions and make the North Africa country follow a road they map out for it after forcing Gaddafi out through military means, analysts said.
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The United States, still mired in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has somehow managed to overcome the jitters over waging another war in Libya.
An article published recently by the Wall Street Journal said the U.S. had transferred command to NATO on two major concerns: neither France nor Britain should take the lead instead of the U.S., and the swift evolution of the Libyan situation prompted Obama to believe the country’s involvement would pay off.
As to Britain, a country that has gradually lost the lead in international affairs, analysts pointed out it had seized the opportunity to expand its global influence. Prime Minister Cameron championed the idea of a no-fly zone from the moment unrest broke out last month.
Germany, a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has adopted a remarkable position on Libya. It has abstained from the U.N. vote on a no-fly zone over the country, refrained from joining forces with other Western powers, and even on some occasions indicated an “opposing attitude” to the West-led intervention. Germany said it actions were not out of support for Gaddafi, but concern military action was “too risky.”
The only Islamic country in NATO, Turkey, has repeatedly voiced its opposition since West-led airstrikes began. However, after days of negotiation, all NATO member states, including Turkey, agreed to take over command of the military operations against Libya. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu nevertheless stressed on several occasions that Turkey would never use military force, worrying about finding in Libya another Afghanistan or Iraq war.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria slammed the military action against Libya as an “adventure” driven by oil interests, the harshest criticism so far from a NATO member state.
Cameron vehemently defended the military intervention in Libya at the opening of the London Conference on Lybia on Tuesday.
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NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Tuesday he could not guess how long the alliance’s military mission would last in Libya….
“I am not going to guess,” he told Reuters when asked how long the NATO mission could last and whether it could become a financial burden for alliance states on top of their long commitment in Afghanistan.
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It is difficult to predict the future of military operations. Obama on Monday warned the United States may once again get drawn into a war.
“We went down that road in Iraq,” Obama told military officers at the National Defense University in Washington.
“Regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya,” he said.
Meanwhile, an article on the website of USA Today said: “U.S. intervention in Libya is a blunder. We intervene in support of an opposition that is unpredictable, at an expense that is unsupportable and with an endgame unknown.”
Some people worry the war may trigger a new wave of terrorism.
“In trying to figure out just what we have gotten ourselves into by applying military force to Libya, one set of consequences that has little comment so far concerns international terrorism,” said U.S. magazine National Interest in its website.
“Any use of Western and especially U.S. military force in a Muslim country runs the risk of energizing Islamist terrorism,” it said.
“The dimension that is hardest to gauge but ultimately may have the broadest impact is the effect on perceptions and resentments of many people far beyond Libya who might be recruited into terrorism, or at least might support or sympathize with it,” it said.
There is enormous financial pressure for Western countries with huge military expenditures. The British army is capable of participating in lightning wars against Libya, but prolonged wars may make Cameron reconsider his plan to cut the national defense budget.
Some countries are worried about their international image.
“Sarkozy wants France to play the hero in Libya, but fears that, if the intervention drags on and becomes muddied in the dirty business of occupying Tripoli or negotiating with Gaddafi loyalists, France could once again look the colonial power,” the U.S. magazine Atlantic Monthly said on its website.
“Italy, which held Libya until 1951, has similar fears. And no country wants to own a long-running, possibly sectarian conflict in Libya the way that the United States owns the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” it said.
France has been reluctant to hand over command to NATO. Some analysts believe that France does not have enough authority after returning to NATO in 2009 and fears being marginalized. France finally agreed to hand over command to NATO, but insisted on limits to NATO’s power.
On March 24, the United States, Britain, France, and Turkey agreed to put all the Libya operations under a NATO umbrella….
As operations in Libya continue, the international community has become increasingly divided on the issue of intervention. Voices calling for peace have been running high, which puts the allies under great pressure.
Those attending Tuesday’s London Conference clearly reflected the opinion of related countries and international organizations on the military action.
The Arab League’s Moussa, who was courted by Western countries, and the African Union’s Ping, who was expected to attend, did not appear at all.
Meanwhile, more pressure came from anti-war demonstrations in countries such as the U.S., France, Turkey and Spain.
In Washington, protesters gathered outside the White House Saturday to call on the government to quit meddling in the country.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said: “The administration has a responsibility to define for the American people, the Congress and our troops, what the mission in Libya is.”
Obama may not have expected that, with the Arabic countries’ support and U.N. Security Council resolution, the military intervention would provoke severe domestic criticism and queries.
Italy’s parliament approved a government resolution involving the country’s participation in the military operations in Libya last Thursday, with 300 “yes” votes and 293 “no” votes.
However, considerable resistance against war is evident.
An opinion poll carried out by Corriere della Serra, the top-selling Italian daily newspaper, demonstrated the public mood, with 53 percent opposing the intervention and only 42 percent approving.
During the London conference, hundreds of Libyans lined outside expressing their opposition to the intervention.
They claimed Libya’s issues could only be solved by Libyans and they had the ability to protect their country without military intervention by any other countries.
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Libya: U.S.-NATO Ground Operations More Likely
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/31/48245163.html
Voice of Russia
March 31, 2011
Land operations in Libya more likely
Alexander Vatutin
US President Barack Obama has authorized secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Libya to support rebels in their fight against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. This only became known on March 30th, although a document to this effect was signed two or three weeks ago. A leak of information to the American media coincided with the beginning of an offensive by [government] troops against the opposition.
In fact, here we are dealing with supplying weapons to rebel fighters – even if not necessarily right now. However, the US president’s orders point to the need to explore ways to assist the opposition in Libya which is retreating across the country despite air support from the allied forces. Bombings of such a scale are hardly possible without coordination on the ground, military experts claim. This means that CIA agents, along with Britain’s MI6 intelligence service personnel, have long since been deployed on Libyan territory. They apparently not only coordinate air raids but also regularly come into contact with rebel leaders, the New York Times reported.
In practice, the activation of western secret services in Libya implies only one thing – an intervention into that country’s domestic affairs, which runs counter to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 aimed solely at protecting the civilian population. However the document’s vague wording lends itself to expanded interpretation of the scope to use force. This is exactly what generates ambiguity in implementing the resolution after all. Furthermore, the willingness of the western coalition to provide the rebel force with weapons overlooks the lack of coordination inside the opposition, inconsistency and the presence of extremist Islamic elements. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was among those to lay special emphasis on this issue.
“We’ve received disturbing reports about Al-Qaeda involvement. We understand that this evil can spread around the region. I am convinced that a ceasefire and immediate talks are priority tasks. Reforms are needed. But the Libyans themselves should decide what their state will be, without any external interference. It is clear that this will be another regime, a democratic one,” Sergei Lavrov stressed.
Many experts believe that the unilateral interpretation of the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council has little in common with the interests of the Libyan people. This is obviously explicable by entirely different objectives, according to Director of the Center for Comparative Political Studies Boris Shmelev, who does not rule out the possibility of an on-the-ground campaign being prepared by western secret services in Libya.
Despite rather positive relations between Gaddafi and the West that were formed recently, he always seemed to be a person beyond control. And this is the key to understanding what is actually happening in and around Libya. Using resolution 1973, Washington and its allies are attempting to oust Gaddafi and replace him with someone who can be more easily manipulated, Boris Shmelev said.
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NATO Assumes Full Command Of Libyan War Operations
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/north/NATO-Takes-Over-Libya-Air-Operations-118977889.html
Voice of America News
March 31, 2011
NATO Takes Over Libya Air Operations
NATO has assumed full command of all air operations over Libya, taking over from the U.S., which had played a leading role since international forces began enforcing a no-fly zone on March 19.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the transition was completed early Thursday. The NATO operation, called “Unified Protector”, includes enforcing the U.N. Security Council resolution that mandates the no-fly zone along with an arms embargo and airstrikes….
Meanwhile, U.S. media reports say the CIA has sent teams of operatives into Libya to gather intelligence and make contact with anti-Gadhafi forces….
British sources told The New York Times that British special forces and intelligence officers also are in the North African nation.
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Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Obama Authorizes Covert Operations In Libya, CIA Already There
http://en.trend.az/regions/met/arabicr/1853204.html
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
March 31, 2011
Report: CIA agents operating covertly in Libya
The CIA has deployed covert operatives into Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and initiate contacts with rebels seeking to oust leader Moamer Gaddafi, dpa cited The New York Times as reporting Wednesday.
Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper reported online that small groups of CIA agents have been in Libya for several weeks seeking to blunt the effectiveness of Gaddafi’s military. The United States and its allies have been trying to learn more about the rebels and their plans for Libya.
….
The New York Times reported that British intelligence officers are also deployed inside Libya to direct airstrikes.
The reports come as the US and other countries in NATO debate whether to arm the rebels, who have suffered a series of setbacks in recent days under attacks from Gaddafi’s better equipped forces. Obama said he has not ruled out providing weapons to the rebels.
NATO formally took command of the international intervention on Wednesday. The US initially led the air campaign, which began on March 19….
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http://en.rian.ru/world/20110331/163295796.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
March 31, 2011
U. S. president authorizes covert ops in Libya – media
Washington: U.S. President Barack Obama has a signed a secret order authorizing covert operations in support of Libyan rebels fighting to overthrow Muammar Gaddadi’s regime, the ABC News reported.
The United States is among 13 countries carrying out a military operation against Libya in line with the UN Security Council resolution 1973, which imposed a no-fly zone over Libya and authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s attacks on rebel-held towns.
“The presidential finding discusses a number of ways to help the opposition to Muammar Gaddafi, authorizing some assistance now and setting up a legal framework for more robust activities in the future,” the ABC News said Wednesday citing an unidentified source.
According to ABC News, the order “does not direct covert operatives to provide arms to the rebels immediately, although it does prepare for such a contingency and other contingencies should the president decide to go down that road in the future.”
The report comes amid a debate among coalition members on whether to supply the Libyan rebels with sophisticated weaponry as they are being pushed back by forces loyal to Gaddafi.
The White House press office did not comment on the report but said: “We’re assessing and reviewing options for all types of assistance that we could provide to the Libyan people.”
Although international airstrikes have neutralized Gaddafi’s air force and pounded his armor, rebel forces still lack weaponry and organization to fight the loyalists effectively.
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CIA And MI6 Aiding Libyan War Effort On The Ground
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/31/48231226.html
Voice of Russia
March 31, 2011
CIA and MI-6 helping Libyan rebels
Secret agents of the American CIA and British MI-6 intelligence agencies are operating in Libya.
The U.S. and British spies are collecting information, establishing ties with rebel leaders and aiming Western missiles and bombs at Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s troops and military bases, the New York Times newspaper reports.
It says that CIA spy groups have been in Libya for several weeks after President Barack Obama signed a secret directive on assistance to the anti-Gaddafi insurgents.
The White House has declined to comment on the report.
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Poll: Americans Oppose Obama’s Libyan War, Ratings At All-Time Low
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/31/c_13805909.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 31, 2011
U.S. survey says majority oppose Libya involvement
WASHINGTON: A survey released Wednesday indicated a majority of U.S. voters oppose the U.S. military campaign in Libya, while President Barack Obama’s approval rating hit an all-time low at 42 percent.
According to poll results released by Quinnipiac University, 47 percent surveyed oppose Washington’s involvement in Libya, while 41 percent support the mission.
The survey also gave Obama negative ratings how he handled the conflict, with 58 percent saying he has not clearly articulated the goal of U.S. involvement. Sixty-one percent of respondents in the poll said removing Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi from power is not worth having American troops “fight and possibly die.”
Obama has taken heat from both Democrats and Republicans for his handling of the Libya conflict. The Congress is worried with both its clarity and duration, while panning Obama for not consulting Congress before taking action. Obama sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pentagon Chief Robert Gates and top military officer Mike Mullen to explain the campaign to Congress Wednesday.
Also according to the survey, Obama’s approval ratings took a major hit, with just 42 percent of voters approved of what he is doing in office, while 48 percent disapprove of it. What’s more troubling is that fifty percent of voters believe he does not deserve a second term next year while 41 percent said he does. The presidential election is next year.
The 42 percent marks a four percentage-point drop over the past month. A poll released March 3 said Obama had a 46 percent approval rating, while 45 percent of voters said he didn’t deserve a second term.
“President Barack Obama’s approval numbers are at their lowest level ever, slightly below where they were for most of 2010 before he got a bump up in surveys after the November election and into the early part of this year,” said Peter Brown, assistant director at the Quinnipiac Polling Institute.
Brown said federal deficit, economy, foreign policy and healthcare woes are driving Obama’s disapproval numbers up.
The poll surveyed 2,069 registered voters nationwide from March 22 to 28 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.2 percentage points.
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Defense Minister: NATO’s Libyan Operation Costs Greece $9 Million A Month
http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=143727
Azeri Press Agency
March 30, 2011
Libya operation costs Greece 6.5 million euros monthly: official
Baku: Greek Defense Minister Evangelos Venizelos said Tuesday that the military operation under way to tackle the crisis in Libya costs Greece some 6.5 million euros ( about 9.15 million U.S. dollars) every month, APA reports quoting Xinhua.
Addressing a parliamentary committee over the issue, Venizelos stressed that debt-ridden Greece will continue to undertake its supporting role in the operation….
Meanwhile, Greek media reported that aided by the EU’s border monitoring agency Frontex, Greece is boosting sea patrols in the Mediterranean Sea in face of a new influx of illegal immigrants from troubled North Africa.
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Over the past few days, at least 5,000 people illegally reached Italy from north Africa and approximately 500 arrived in Malta.
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Venezuela On Libya: No Peace With Bombs, West Eyes Oil Reserves
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/31/c_13806525.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 31, 2011
Venezuela supports Gaddafi’s resistance to air raids
MONTEVIDEO: Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said here Wednesday he supports Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s military resistance to air raids by the international community.
Gaddafi “is doing what he has to do,” Chavez said during a joint press conference with Uruguayan President Jose Mujica.
Chavez said he cannot “give answers as to what Gaddafi is doing there, but there is no justification for a group of countries to bomb (Libya).”
The president repeated his proposal to set up a peace commission to mediate between the opposition forces and Gaddafi’s regime as an alternative to military intevention.
“How can we achieve peace with bombs?” Chavez asked. He said the bombing by the United States and other European countries was motivated by “taking the oil and stealing the reserves.”
Chavez met with Mujica earlier on Wednesday to sign a number of agreements on bilateral cooperation and energy. The trip to Uruguay is part of a regional tour which will also take the Venezuelan president to Argentina, Bolivia and Colombia.
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NATO Air Strike Kills Libyan Infant
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1105ap_af_libya_civilian_death.html
Associated Press
March 30, 2011
Libyan toddler dies, family says from airstrike
By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI
KHORUM, Libya: The grieving mother sat on the ground rocking her 2-month old daughter under a blanket on her lap, crying softly and accepting the soft words of condolences from neighbors.
Nizha Abdel-Salam and her family say her 18-month old son Sirajuddin al-Sweisi was killed when debris pierced the wall of their home as NATO airstrikes hit an ammunition [dump?] near their village of Khorum early Tuesday morning.
“The house shook and there was so much dust everywhere we couldn’t see in front of us,” she said.
….
The Libyan government says more than 100 people have been killed by airstrikes since the international campaign began on March 19….
In an interview with the Associated Press, Abdel-Salam, 27, said the blast hit their house at around 6 a.m. Tuesday. She said she rushed to the living room where her son had been sleeping on a mattress on the floor with his father, and she saw that a hot piece of metal had embedded into the side of the child’s face.
She rushed to pick up her crying son.
“His blood was streaming down my arm,” she said Wednesday, choking back tears. “He was crying out, ‘Mama, Mama,’ reaching out with his hand to me.”
A hole was visible Wednesday piercing the outside wall of their home into their living room, and the opposite wall of the room was pockmarked with holes. Parts of the other walls had been broken off in the home, located on the third floor of a four-story building.
The boy’s uncle showed reporters a picture on his mobile phone of the baby on his deathbed. Sirajuddin’s left cheek has a deep dark brown burn mark, his body swathed in a white shroud.
“We took him to the hospital where they treated him for the burns and some broken bones,” said Abdel-Hakim al-Sweisi. “But by nightfall he was dead.”
Neighbors said they heard a large explosion early Tuesday morning and said planes were heard overhead. They said the ammunition depot, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Abdel-Salam’s home, had exploded and a number of homes were damaged by debris.
Some neighbors said there were injuries, but the only death in the town was young al-Sweisi. The impoverished village is tucked away in the mountains near the region’s main town, Gharyan, an area dotted with olive groves and grazing sheep. Its largely unpaved roads were muddy and partially flooded Wednesday from recent rains.
Stop NATO News March 30, 2011
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stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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1. Video And Text: Day That Shook The World, NATO Bombs Chinese Embassy
2. Serbia In NATO Represents Threat To Russia
3. General Petraeus Praises Georgia’s Military Role In Afghanistan
4. U.S. Navy To Expand Role In Black Sea: Top NATO Military Commander
5. U.S. Flies Drones Over Black Sea, Trains Georgian Military
6. U.S. Imposes New Sanctions On Belarus For Cooperation With Iran
7. Missile Defense Agency Grants Lockheed $789 Million For 28 THAAD Missile Interceptors
8. Missile Defense Agency Awards Raytheon $323 Million For Next-Generation Missile For NATO Missile Shield In Europe
9. Russia To Deploy Arctic Brigade This Year
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1. Video: Day That Shook The World, NATO Bombs Chinese Embassy
The Independent
March 30, 2011
A Day That Shook The World: Nato accidentally bombs the Chinese embassy
On 7 May 1999, Nato warplanes on a mission to bomb Belgrade accidentally hit the Chinese embassy, killing three journalists and nearly dragging them into the war on the Serbian side.
Beijing did not believe the attack to be a mistake, so NATO found itself desperately scrabbling to make amends.
The diplomatic crisis did not grow into a military one, but it did prolong the Kosovo conflict, causing no small extra friction with an angry China – whose citizens demonstrated in their droves.
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2. Serbia In NATO Represents Threat To Russia
http://www.b92.net/eng/insight/tvshows.php?yyyy=2011&mm=03&nav_id=73523
Danas
March 30, 2011
“Serbia in NATO would represent threat to Russia”
Jelena Tasić
Russian Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandr Vasilyevich Konuzin told the Belgrade-based daily Danas in an interview that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit last week had “completely met the principal expectations”.
It went in an atmosphere of close friendship and talks about trade and economic cooperation were very concrete and pragmatic, said the diplomat.
According to the Russian ambassador, Putin did not talk about relations between official Belgrade and NATO with Serbian President Boris Tadić and Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković. The issue, as he said, was launched by heads of parliamentary groups in the Serbian parliament who showed Putin that they were not united in their stance regarding the possibility of Serbia joining the western military alliance.
“In that situation, Prime Minister Putin clearly presented the Russian position – Serbs should solve the issue by themselves, but Russia thinks that it is necessary to present its opinion about NATO’s expansion, which is jeopardizing its security.”
Stating a concrete example, he said that nobody asked small countries in the NATO for their opinion, but that that instead decisions were made which these countries then had to fulfill.
“Any possible decision about missile deployment in Serbia’s territory would be a threat to Russia’s security and Russia would be forced to take military actions in order to remove that military threat. Those measures would not be aimed against Serbia but against the missiles,” the Russian ambassador explained.
Q: Is this statement of Prime Minister Putin a “warning” to the Serbian authorities?
A: Serbia has the right to join any organization. We will respect the decision you make on your own, but we are counting on Belgrade to respectfully approach our thoughts that NATO accession would pose a threat to Russia’s security. I personally think that it is necessary to explain to Serbia what would happen if there was a threat to Russia’s security from its territory. We have been cooperating for 800 years and such a question never appeared. On the contrary, we fought wars against joint enemies and it is not quite clear for what reason weapons pointed against Russia could be deployed in Serbia.”
Q: The NATO forces in Kosovo and Metohija are effectively already in a part of the Serbian territory. How does Moscow assess their presence after Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence?
A: The Kosovo territory is a part of Serbia in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 1244. NATO’s military base is there despite Belgrade’s wishes. This means contrary to international law, and unlawfully. Russia sees it that way.
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3. General Petraeus Praises Georgia’s Military Role In Afghanistan
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=23290
Civil Georgia
March 30, 2011
Gen. Petraeus Praises Georgian Troops in Afghanistan
Tbilisi: General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said the Georgian troops in Afghanistan “have been integral to the growing success of our efforts to improve security and stability” in Helmand and Nimruz provinces.
In a letter sent to the Georgian Minister of Defense, Bacho Akhalaia, the U.S. general praised Georgian troops for “effective interactions with the Afghan people”, which, he said, had led to increased confidence in both NATO-led forces and Afghan government.
The text of letter was released by the Georgian Ministry of Defense on March 30.
….
“Your troops are truly courageous in conducting these foot patrols, which place them at greater risk of insurgent attacks,” the U.S. general writes.
Musa Qala in north of the Helmand province has seen some of the fiercest fighting in previous years….
With the latest death reported on March 14, the total number of Georgian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, since joining the NATO-led operation in November, 2009, increased to seven.
Georgia first deployed a company-sized unit in Afghanistan in November, 2009 and increased its contribution to the NATO-led forces to about 950 soldiers in April, 2010 after sending a battalion in Helmand.
In February the Georgian parliament approved the government’s proposal to send to Afghanistan a team of artillery instructors to train the Afghan military.
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4. U.S. Navy To Expand Role In Black Sea: Top NATO Military Commander
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/31/c_13805896.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 31, 2011
U.S. Navy to widen activity area in Black Sea region: admiral
TBILISI: The U.S. Navy has planned to widen its activities in the Black Sea region by involving 14 countries in its envisaged military training drills this year, Georgian media reported on Wednesday.
Quoting four-star U.S. admiral James Stavridis, the Georgian television broadcaster Rustavi2 said that the chief of the U.S. European Command said on March 30 in his testimony in Congress that the Marine Operative-Tactic Corps would widen the area of its activities in the Black Sea region to include 14 countries.
There are six countries surrounding the Black Sea and they are Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Georgia.
The admiral explained to Congress that the widening of the activity area aims at training partner states for the Afghanistan peace mission.
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5. U.S. Flies Drones Over Black Sea, Trains Georgian Military
http://rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=40916&pg=1&im=main&ct=0&wth=
Rustavi2
March 30, 2011
US widens the area of its mission in Black Sea
The Marine Operative-Tactic Corps of the United States is widening the area of its activities in the Black Sea region, the commander of U.S. European Command, Admiral James Stavridis, announced in his testimony to Congress this morning.
The admiral said in 2011 the operative and tactical groups of the Navy have drafted a military training plan in which 14 countries of the Black Sea region were involved. The enhancement of the area aims at training the partner states for the Afghanistan peace mission.
Stavridis said US Marine forces have already conducted the first mission of drones in the Black Sea; however, he did not specify the date of the operation.
When questioned by Senator John McCain about military cooperation with Georgia, Admiral answered that American instructors continued to train Georgian soldiers, but denied that the US was supplying Georgia with weapons.
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6. U.S. Imposes New Sanctions On Belarus For Cooperation With Iran
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=16099917&PageNum=0
Itar-Tass
March 30, 2011
USA imposes sanctions on Belarusian energy company for cooperation with Iran
WASHINGTON DC: The United States has imposed sanctions on the Belarusian state energy company, Belarusneft, for cooperation with Iran, the Department of State announced on Tuesday.
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7. Missile Defense Agency Grants Lockheed $789 Million For 28 THAAD Missile Interceptors
Lockheed Martin
March 30, 2011
Lockheed Martin Awarded $789.8 Million THAAD Production Contract
DALLAS: Lockheed Martin has received a production contract totaling $789.8 million to produce the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Weapon System for the Missile Defense Agency.
The contract includes $694.9 million and for the production of 48 THAAD interceptors, six THAAD launchers, four fire control units and additional support equipment. An option for additional launchers in the amount of $94.8 million was also award for a total value of $789.8 million. These components will be employed by THAAD Batteries 3 and 4 for the U.S. Army. Delivery to Batteries 3 and 4 will be completed in 2013.
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Since 2005, the THAAD development program has completed 11 flight tests, with seven intercepts in seven attempts. THAAD is the only missile defense system with the operational flexibility to intercept in both the endo- and exo-atmospheres to provide versatile capability to the warfighter.
Two THAAD batteries have been activated at Fort Bliss, Texas. The first THAAD Battery (A-4 ADA Battery) was activated in May 2008. In October 2009, the U.S. Army activated the second THAAD Battery (A-2 ADA Battery). Unit training for this Battery began earlier this year.
A key element of the nation’s Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), THAAD is a Missile Defense Agency program, with the program office located in Huntsville, Ala. The Agency is developing the BMDS to defend the United States, its deployed forces, friends and allies against ballistic missiles of all ranges and in all phases of flight.
….
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8. Missile Defense Agency Awards Raytheon $323 Million For Next-Generation Missile For NATO Missile Shield In Europe
http://azstarnet.com/business/local/article_2b75c55c-5b0f-11e0-9a59-001cc4c03286.html
Arizona Daily Star
March 30, 2011
Raytheon gets $312M contract for new missile interceptor
By David Wichner
Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems has been awarded a $312 million contract for the Standard Missile-3 Block IB, a next-generation missile interceptor that is a key part of a planned missile shield for Europe.
The contract from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency provides funding to complete the development phase of the SM-3 Block IB program and deliver 24 developmental missile rounds to the MDA, said Wes Kremer, SM-3 program director for Raytheon.
The contract is a key milestone in preparation for the first SM-3 Block IB flight test, expected later this year.
“Development is ramping up here, and our first flight test is in late summer,” Kremer said.
The work will be performed in Tucson for completion in June 2013. Earlier this month, Raytheon was awarded a separate, $75 million contract for engineering development of the SM-3.
….
Adapted from the Standard Missile series of ship-defense missiles, the SM-3 is part of the seagoing Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system. The current Block IA version is deployed on U.S. and Japanese cruisers equipped with the Aegis missile-launching system.
The SM-3 is a key part of the the Obama administration’s “phased adaptive approach” to missile defense. The approach, unveiled in 2009 and approved by NATO last year, scrapped plans to deploy large, ground-based interceptors in Europe in favor of the sea-based and land-based versions of the Aegis system.
As part of the first phase of that program, a U.S. Navy cruiser equipped with SM-3 Block IA missiles sailed to the Mediterranean Sea earlier this month for a six-month deployment.
The Block IB missile, which adds important targeting capabilities, is planned for use with the second phase of the missile-defense plan, which includes deployment of the SM-3 Block IB by 2015.
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9. Russia To Deploy Arctic Brigade This Year
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/30/c_13805613.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 30, 2011
Russia to deploy Arctic brigade in 2011
MOSCOW: Russia is going to deploy a special motorized infantry brigade in its Arctic sector in 2011, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
The brigade will be deployed in the Kola Peninsula in the western part of Arctic but would be responsible for operations in the whole Arctic region, Interfax news agency reported.
The new Arctic brigade will be created on the grounds of an existing motorized infantry brigade and will be based in the town of Pechenga near Russia-Norway border.
The brigade will be armed with ordinary weapons, special clothing and equipment designed for use in Arctic conditions. The Defense Ministry said the experience of Norwegian and Finnish Arctic forces have been studied during the preparation for the brigade’s deployment.
Earlier, Russia’s Security Council approved the fundamental principles of the national Arctic policy until 2020. This document envisioned deployment of the armed forces in the region, capable to maintain security in various military-political conditions.
On Wednesday, the Russian Parliament’s upper house, the Federation Council, has ratified the agreement with Norway on the Barents Sea delimitation, which establishes a sea delimitation line dividing the disputed area approximately into two equal parts.
Jack London: War
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
American writers on peace and against war
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Jack London
War (1911)
He was a young man, not more than twenty-four or five, and he might have sat his horse with the careless grace of his youth had he not been so catlike and tense. His black eyes roved everywhere, catching the movements of twigs and branches where small birds hopped, questing ever onward through the changing vistas of trees and brush, and returning always to the clumps of undergrowth on either side. And as he watched, so did he listen, though he rode on in silence, save for the boom of heavy guns from far to the west. This had been sounding monotonously in his ears for hours, and only its cessation could have aroused his notice. For he had business closer to hand. Across his saddle-bow was balanced a carbine.
So tensely was he strung, that a bunch of quail, exploding into flight from under his horse’s nose, startled him to such an extent that automatically, instantly, he had reined in and fetched the carbine halfway to his shoulder. He grinned sheepishly, recovered himself, and rode on. So tense was he, so bent upon the work he had to do, that the sweat stung his eyes unwiped, and unheeded rolled down his nose and spattered his saddle pommel. The band of his cavalryman’s hat was fresh-stained with sweat. The roan horse under him was likewise wet. It was high noon of a breathless day of heat. Even the birds and squirrels did not dare the sun, but sheltered in shady hiding places among the trees.
Man and horse were littered with leaves and dusted with yellow pollen, for the open was ventured no more than was compulsory. They kept to the brush and trees, and invariably the man halted and peered out before crossing a dry glade or naked stretch of upland pasturage. He worked always to the north, though his way was devious, and it was from the north that he seemed most to apprehend that for which he was looking. He was no coward, but his courage was only that of the average civilized man, and he was looking to live, not die.
Up a small hillside he followed a cowpath through such dense scrub that he was forced to dismount and lead his horse. But when the path swung around to the west, he abandoned it and headed to the north again along the oak-covered top of the ridge.
The ridge ended in a steep descent-so steep that he zigzagged back and forth across the face of the slope, sliding and stumbling among the dead leaves and matted vines and keeping a watchful eye on the horse above that threatened to fall down upon him. The sweat ran from him, and the pollen-dust, settling pungently in mouth and nostrils, increased his thirst. Try as he would, nevertheless the descent was noisy, and frequently he stopped, panting in the dry heat an d listening for any warning from beneath.
At the bottom he came out on a flat, so densely forested that he could not make out its extent. Here the character of the woods changed, and he was able to remount. Instead of the twisted hillside oaks, tall straight trees, big-trunked and prosperous, rose from the damp fat soil. Only here and there were thickets, easily avoided, while he encountered winding, park-like glades where the cattle had pastured in the days before war had run them off.
His progress was more rapid now, as he came down into the valley, and at the end of half an hour he halted at an ancient rail fence on the edge of a clearing. He did not like the openness of it, yet his path lay across to the fringe of trees that marked the banks of the stream. It was a mere quarter of a mile across that open, but the thought of venturing out in it was repugnant. A rifle, a score of them, a thousand, might lurk in that fringe by the stream.
Twice he essayed to start, and twice he paused. He was appalled by his own loneliness. The pulse of war that beat from the West suggested the companionship of battling thousands; here was naught but silence, and himself, and possible death-dealing bullets from a myriad ambushes. And yet his task was to find what he feared to find. He must on, and on, till somewhere, some time, he encountered another man, or other men, from the other side, scouting, as he was scouting, to make report, as he must make report, of having come in touch.
Changing his mind, he skirted inside the woods for a distance, and again peeped forth. This time, in the middle of the clearing, he saw a small farmhouse. There were no signs of life. No smoke curled from the chimney, not a barnyard fowl clucked and strutted. The kitchen door stood open, and he gazed so long and hard into the black aperture that it seemed almost that a farmer’s wife must emerge at any moment.
He licked the pollen and dust from his dry lips, stiffened himself, mind and body, and rode out into the blazing sunshine. Nothing stirred. He went on past the house, and approached the wall of trees and bushes by the river’s bank. One thought persisted maddeningly. It was of the crash into his body of a high-velocity bullet. It made him feel very fragile and defenseless, and he crouched lower in the saddle.
Tethering his horse in the edge of the wood, he continued a hundred yards on foot till he came to the stream. Twenty feet wide it was, without perceptible current, cool and inviting, and he was very thirsty. But he waited inside his screen of leafage, his eyes fixed on the screen on the opposite side. To make the wait endurable, he sat down, his carbine resting on his knees. The minutes passed, and slowly his tenseness relaxed. At last he decided there was no danger; but just as he prepared to part the bushes and bend down to the water, a movement among the opposite bushes caught his eye.
It might be a bird. But he waited. Again there was an agitation of the bushes, and then, so suddenly that it almost startled a cry from him, the bushes parted and a face peered out. It was a face covered with several weeks’ growth of ginger-colored beard. The eyes were blue and wide apart, with laughter-wrinkles in the comers that showed despite the tired and anxious expression of the whole face.
All this he could see with microscopic clearness, for the distance was no more than twenty feet. And all this he saw in such brief time, that he saw it as he lifted his carbine to his shoulder. He glanced along the sights, and knew that he was gazing upon a man who was as good as dead. It was impossible to miss at such point blank range.
But he did not shoot. Slowly he lowered the carbine and watched. A hand, clutching a water-bottle, became visible and the ginger beard bent downward to fill the bottle. He could hear the gurgle of the water. Then arm and bottle and ginger beard disappeared behind the closing bushes. A long time he waited, when, with thirst unslaked, he crept back to his horse, rode slowly across the sun-washed clearing, and passed into the shelter of the woods beyond.
II
Another day, hot and breathless. A deserted farmhouse, large, with many outbuildings and an orchard, standing in a clearing. From the Woods, on a roan horse, carbine across pommel, rode the young man with the quick black eyes. He breathed with relief as he gained the house. That a fight had taken place here earlier in the season was evident. Clips and empty cartridges, tarnished with verdigris, lay on the ground, which, while wet, had been torn up by the hoofs of horses. Hard by the kitchen garden were graves, tagged and numbered. From the oak tree by the kitchen door, in tattered, weatherbeaten garments, hung the bodies of two men. The faces, shriveled and defaced, bore no likeness to the faces of men. The roan horse snorted beneath them, and the rider caressed and soothed it and tied it farther away.
Entering the house, he found the interior a wreck. He trod on empty cartridges as he walked from room to room to reconnoiter from the windows. Men had camped and slept everywhere, and on the floor of one room he came upon stains unmistakable where the wounded had been laid down.
Again outside, he led the horse around behind the barn and invaded the orchard. A dozen trees were burdened with ripe apples. He filled his pockets, eating while he picked. Then a thought came to him, and he glanced at the sun, calculating the time of his return to camp. He pulled off his shirt, tying the sleeves and making a bag. This he proceeded to fill with apples.
As he was about to mount his horse, the animal suddenly pricked up its ears. The man, too, listened, and heard, faintly, the thud of hoofs on soft earth. He crept to the corner of the barn and peered out. A dozen mounted men, strung out loosely, approaching from the opposite side of the clearing, were only a matter of a hundred yards or so away. They rode on to the house. Some dismounted, while others remained in the saddle as an earnest that their stay would be short. They seemed to be holding a council, for he could hear them talking excitedly in the detested tongue of the alien invader. The time passed, but they seemed unable to reach a decision. He put the carbine away in its boot, mounted, and waited impatiently, balancing the shirt of apples on the pommel.
He heard footsteps approaching, and drove his spurs so fiercely into the roan as to force a surprised groan from the animal as it leaped forward. At the comer of the barn he saw the intruder, a mere boy of nineteen or twenty for all of his uniform jump back to escape being run down. At the same moment the roan swerved and its rider caught a glimpse of the aroused men by the house. Some were springing from their horses, and he could see the rifles going to their shoulders. He passed the kitchen door and the dried corpses swinging in the shade, compelling his foes to run around the front of the house. A rifle cracked, and a second, but he was going fast, leaning forward, low in the saddle, one hand clutching the shirt of apples, the other guiding the horse.
The top bar of the fence was four feet high, but he knew his roan and leaped it at full career to the accompaniment of several scattered shots. Eight hundred yards straight away were the woods, and the roan was covering the distance with mighty strides. Every man was now firing. pumping their guns so rapidly that he no longer heard individual shots. A bullet went through his hat, but he was unaware, though he did know when another tore through the apples on the pommel. And he winced and ducked even lower when a third bullet, fired low, struck a stone between his horse’s legs and ricochetted off through the air, buzzing and humming like some incredible insect.
The shots died down as the magazines were emptied, until, quickly, there was no more shooting. The young man was elated. Through that astonishing fusillade he had come unscathed. He glanced back. Yes, they had emptied their magazines. He could see several reloading. Others were running back behind the house for their horses. As he looked, two already mounted, came back into view around the comer, riding hard. And at the same moment, he saw the man with the unmistakable ginger beard kneel down on the ground, level his gun, and coolly take his time for the long shot.
The young man threw his spurs into the horse, crouched very low, and swerved in his flight in order to distract the other’s aim. And still the shot did not come. With each jump of the horse, the woods sprang nearer. They were only two hundred yards away and still the shot was delayed.
And then he heard it, the last thing he was to hear, for he was dead ere he hit the ground in the long crashing fall from the saddle. And they, watching at the house, saw him fall, saw his body bounce when it struck the earth, and saw the burst of red-cheeked apples that rolled about him. They laughed at the unexpected eruption of apples, and clapped their hands in applause of the long shot by the man with the ginger beard.
NATO Wages War On Third Continent
Stop NATO
March 30, 2011
NATO Wages War On Third Continent
Rick Rozoff
At its summit in Lisbon, Portugal last November the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted its first strategic concept for the 21st century, one in keeping with its expansion into not only a pan-European but a self-styled international military force.
In addition to subordinating all of Europe to a U.S.-dominated interceptor missile system, complementing the new U.S. Cyber Command in waging cyberwarfare defensive and offensive, and erasing whatever distinction remained between NATO and European Union military functions on the continent and globally, the world’s only military bloc endorsed the nearly ten-year-old war in Afghanistan as its prime mission and affirmed its commitment to ongoing operations in the Balkans.
Almost all of the approximately 150,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan are currently under the command of the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force, which is also conducting deadly helicopter gunship raids and artillery attacks inside neighboring Pakistan.
The war in South Asia is NATO’s first armed conflict outside Europe and its first ground war. Its bombing campaign in Bosnia in 1995 and 78-day air war against Yugoslavia four years later were its first hostile military actions.
NATO is now waging a war in a third continent, Africa.
The Alliance’s summit last year placed particular emphasis on consolidating partnerships with nations outside Europe and North America; military relations and agreements with, counting NATO members and partners alike, over a third of the 192 members of the United Nations.
Mechanisms employed to extend NATO’s influence and operations worldwide include the Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, the Contact Countries format, the NATO-Afghanistan-Pakistan Tripartite Commission and the NATO-Russia Council.
Five of the seven members of the Mediterranean Dialogue – Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – are African states.
With U.S. Africa Command achieving full operational capability on October 1, 2008, the whole continent has been placed under an American overseas military command (Egypt remains in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility), with plans underway to replicate that arrangement with NATO. [1]
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) assumed control of what is now a 12-day war against Libya, the only North African nation not subordinated to AFRICOM or CENTCOM and to binding NATO obligations, through its Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn.
With NATO assuming direct command of the war – air and cruise missile strikes, a naval blockade of the country, on-the-ground operations in conjunction with anti-government insurgents and afterward independently – AFRICOM and NATO are being merged into one warfighting force.
In addition to that unprecedented integration, two members of NATO’s Istanbul Cooperation Initiative – Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – are providing warplanes for Operation Odyssey Dawn and in the process engaging in a joint campaign with both NATO and AFRICOM for the first time. (The United Arab Emirates is one of 48 Troop Contributing Nations for NATO’s Afghan war and Bahrain, another Istanbul Cooperation Initiative partner, is supplying security forces for the International Security Assistance Force. Mediterranean Dialogue member Egypt is also an unofficial force contributor for NATO in Afghanistan.)
When on March 28 President Barack Obama repeatedly mentioned the international community and “international partners” and the “broad coalition” conducting the war against Libya along with the Pentagon, he could only cite eleven allies so involved: “[N]ations like the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey…all of whom have fought by our side for decades [and] Arab partners like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.”
Nevertheless, Washington has brought together North American and European NATO allies with Persian Gulf partners for a war in Africa, the latest step in solidifying an international military alliance under U.S. control, complementing the building of an Asia-Pacific NATO, consolidating military partnerships in the Persian Gulf and throughout the Middle East and integrating former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia into the Pentagon-NATO network.
Military operations currently under AFRICOM’s Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn and within hours to be transferred to NATO have included over 1,800 sorties and 214 Tomahawk cruise missile attacks since the beginning of the war on March 19.
NATO’s Lisbon summit declaration of last November highlighted an expanding role for the bloc in Africa, including supporting the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), for which it has airlifted thousands of Ugandan troops for combat in the nation’s capital, the Operation Ocean Shield naval operation off the Horn of Africa and the operationalization of the African Standby Force, modeled after the NATO Response Force.
In twelve years the U.S. has used NATO for the war against Yugoslavia – the first unprovoked attack against a sovereign European nation since World War Two – a nearly decade-long air and ground war in Asia, and now the opening stages of a war in Africa. None of those wars were launched either to defend a member of NATO or in the so-called Euro-Atlantic area the military bloc arrogates to itself the right to protect.
21st century NATO is a global military strike force to be employed wherever its leading member states, the U.S. in the first case, choose to use it. Other nations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caucasus and even what is left of unsubjugated Europe had best take note of the fact.
1) Africa: Global NATO Seeks To Recruit 50 New Military Partners
Stop NATO, February 20, 2011
Updates on Libyan war: March 30
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U.S. Aircraft, Warship Attack Libyan Vessels
Libyan War: “NATO Command Is Up And Running”
NATO’s Libyan War Is American War
NATO Uses Depleted Uranium Bombs Against Libyans
Analyst: Libyans’ Turn For NATO Depleted Uranium Poisoning
Media Questions West’s Double Standards In Arab World
Syria Blames Outside Forces For Unrest
Brzezinski Blasts Germany, Poland For Lukewarm Support Of Libyan War
Argentine President Condemns NATO’s War In Libya
Sweden Accedes To NATO Demand, To Deploy Eight Warplanes For Libyan Campaign
NATO Orders Bulgarian Warship To Libyan Waters
NATO’s Assault On Libya: 1,800 Sorties, 214 Cruise Missile Attacks
70 Percent Of Britons Fear New Iraq-Style War In Libya
NATO’s Top Military Commander: Foreign Stabilization Force In Libya
Videos And Text: Obama Establishes Doctrine Around Libya
France Sends Envoy To Libyan Rebel Base: Report
Qatar Launches Television Channel For Libyan Insurgents
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U.S. Aircraft, Warship Attack Libyan Vessels
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=59406
Navy NewsStand
March 30, 2011
US Navy P-3C, USAF A-10 and USS Barry Engage Libyan Vessels
From Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn Public Affairs
USS MOUNT WHITNEY, At Sea: A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft and guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG-52), engaged Libyan Coast Guard vessel Vittoria and two smaller craft March 28.
….
The P-3C fired at Vittoria with AGM-65F Maverick missiles, rendering the 12-meter patrol vessel ineffective and forcing it to be beached after multiple explosions were observed in the vicinity of the port.
Two smaller Libyan craft were fired upon by the A-10 using its 30mm GAU-8/ Avenger cannon, destroying one and forcing the other to be abandoned.
Barry provided situational awareness for the aircraft by managing the airspace and maintaining the maritime picture.
The P-3C, A-10 and Barry are currently supporting operations for Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn.
Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn is the U.S. Africa Command task force established to provide operational and tactical command and control of U.S. military forces….
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Libyan War: “NATO Command Is Up And Running”
http://en.trend.az/regions/met/arabicr/1853137.html
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
March 30, 2011
NATO starts taking over command of Libya military operations
NATO has officially started taking over the command of military operations in Libya, officials said Wednesday, DPA reported.
“NATO command is up and running,” a NATO official said. “We received all the pledges we need.”
Military sources said there are still some jets and military equipment that had to be placed under NATO’s control by their respective governments, but that was expected to happen within hours.
Belgian pilots have already transitioned to NATO command, the Belga news agency reported.
Canadian Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard is leading the NATO mission, code-named Unified Protector, from the alliance’s maritime headquarters in Naples, Italy.
NATO ambassadors had paved the way on Sunday for the military alliance to take total control of operations meant to protect civilians from Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi’s troops.
NATO had already been in charge of enforcing a no-fly zone over the North African country and patrolling an arms embargo in the Mediterranean.
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NATO’s Libyan War Is American War
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/30/48197480.html
Voice of Russia
March 30, 2011
The game’s not worth the Tomahawk
Boris Volkhonsky
-No matter how the US is trying to keep the low profile, its leading role is demonstrated by pure figures: 550 million dollars so far and an additional 40 million every consecutive week.
The US has calculated the cost of the military operation against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi which started on March 19. So far, it has already cost the US taxpayers about 550 million dollars. Most of the cost comes from the Tomahawk launches. There have been 192 launches by US alone, each costing about $1.5 million.
Also, the US Air Force has flown 983 sorties – 370 of them being air missions against military sites and forces and the rest for surveillance, refueling and so on. All in all, about 60 percent of the spending was on munitions.
The rest was due to “higher operating tempo” of U.S. forces and of getting them there, said Commander Kathleen Kesler, a Pentagon spokeswoman. The overall figure does not include certain expenditures which would have been spent in any case – such as relocating US soldiers and marines abroad, salaries to military personnel, etc.
As predicted, the cost of the operation will steadily grow at a pace of about $40 million per week. And that regards only the US troops.
The peculiarity of the situation is that the US has been trying to keep as low a profile in the whole operation as possible, trying to present it as a purely European (mainly, French and British) initiative.
But the bare language of figures shows that the whole case is “politics as usual”. Other participants of the coalition have not yet officially calculated how much it has and is likely to cost them. But as for the British, it has been estimated that until now the operation has cost British taxpayers about £25 million (which makes it more than ten times less than the overall US expenditures). There have been seven Tomahawk launches, and British planes have flown 120 missions.
The figures for the French forces have not yet been made public, but one may expect that they would hardly exceed the British.
The whole story makes any unbiased observer look closer at the issue of “qui prodest” (“who benefits”).
From the very beginning of the Libyan unrest, it has been the West’s intention to picture the whole situation as bearing completely regional (more precisely, Mediterranean) significance.
Unrest in Libya had a direct impact on its northern neighbors, most notably Italy and France, being the primary buyers of Libyan oil. More so, for Barack Obama, the whole case was an opportunity to demonstrate that he as a national leader is completely different from his predecessor, George W. Bush Junior.
Now that the two wars launched by George W, have not come to an end and the very possibility of ending them in any favorable manner for the USA seems to be vaguer and vaguer day by day, it would be a grave mistake for Barack Obama to get involved in a third war. Hence, all his statements of a “limited involvement” and his attempts to keep a low profile and present the whole operation as having nothing in common with wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
Well, this might be the US administration’s intention. But we all know too well what road is paved with good intentions. And a bare figure is not something you can easily disregard.
The cost of the war shows openly and starkly in numbers. Those numbers do not directly reflect other costs – like human lives or future repercussions for regional cooperation in the Southern Mediterranean. But they clearly show, who the chief player in this gross geopolitical game is. No matter how the US is trying to keep the low profile, its leading role is demonstrated by pure figures: 550 million dollars so far and an additional 40 million every consecutive week.
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NATO Uses Depleted Uranium Bombs Against Libyans
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/30/48203222.html
Voice of Russia
March 30, 2011
NATO uses depleted uranium bombs against Libya
-Even if these shells explode in a desert far from residential areas, for many Libyans this is a postponed death sentence. The same happened in Iraq where depleted uranium bombs were also used in a desert. A brief look at cancer statistics in Iraq and former Yugoslavia is enough to imagine what awaits Libyans in the near future.
“An unacceptable threat to life and a violation of international law” – that’s how the United States’ former Justice Secretary Ramsey Clark slammed the use of depleted uranium weapons. The United States first used depleted uranium bombs during the military invasion of Iraq in 1991.
Apparently pleased with the debut, the Americans pounded them on Yugoslavia nine years later. These days, world news media have been awash with reports that NATO is using depleted uranium bombs against Libya.
Leaving aside the legal and moral aspect of the attacks, a question arises: can’t NATO crush Colonel Gaddafi’s Armed Forces without radioactive exposure?
Political observer Sergei Guk discussed the issue with Voice of Russia guests General Director of the Center for International and Strategic Research Vladimir Belous and Deputy Director of the Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies Pavel Zolotaryov, both retired major generals.
Shells, bombs and cruise missiles stuffed with depleted uranium easily pierce through thick and heavy armor. That’s why the American military value them so much. According to political research centers in Germany, about 300 radioactive shells were fired at Saddam Hussein’s troops from the air and from the ground during the first campaign, launched in 1991. Twenty-one U.S. tanks were hit by mistake.
The consequences were not slow to arrive. In 2003, the World Health Organization reported a rise in cancer diseases in five provinces in southern Iraq. Air, water and soil were contaminated with radiation. Leukemia south of Baghdad assumed epidemic proportions. By 2009, cancer rates grew to thousands of new cases per year.
The uranium filling boomeranged on NATO troops. In the densely populated Yugoslavia, leukemia symptoms were particularly extensive with radiation levels 10 to 1,000 times above normal. More than 250 Italian soldiers died from cancer-related diseases. As for civilians, here’s just one example. Leukemia rates among new-born babies in former Yugoslavia have soared from one per 1,000 prior to NATO’s uranium attacks to between 10 and 15 per 1,000 now.
Is there any point in using radioactive shells in Libya? Can’t NATO manage without them? Pavel Zolotaryov gives his view:
“There is absolutely no point in that. It could be that the Americans have something to test, considering the tasks they need to fulfill. But how does all that fit in with the UN resolution on Libya?”
Vladimir Belous agrees:
“At present, there is absolutely no need for using such kinds of shells. Although the quantity of uranium is small, radioactive shrapnel, when penetrating into a human body, creates big problems for the treatment of the wounded.”
The aim of the UN resolution on a no-fly zone over Libya, which took shape before our very eyes, is formulated very precisely: not just shutting the air space but protecting civilians. Nothing beyond that. No one authorized NATO to fight on the side of one warring faction against the other, let alone use depleted uranium shells.
Even if these shells explode in a desert far from residential areas, for many Libyans this is a postponed death sentence. The same happened in Iraq where depleted uranium bombs were also used in a desert. A brief look at cancer statistics in Iraq and former Yugoslavia is enough to imagine what awaits Libyans in the near future.
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Analyst: Libyans’ Turn For NATO Depleted Uranium Poisoning
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/world/news/65650/
PanArmenian.net
March 30, 2011
NATO forces use uranium weapons in Libya
There’s a suspicion that armor-piercing, radioactive weapons are being deployed by foreign forces on Libya.
The U.S. says ‘it’s not aware’ that depleted uranium is being used, while the UK is flatly denying it. Political observer Christoph Hoerstel said NATO’s chief members have a habit of using uranium weapons – and it’s likely Libya’s in line.
Naming it a dirty habit, Mr. Hoerstel said that the U.S. used uranium weapons in Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan. “Unfortunately Libya is not an exception. If this happens, it will be impossible to keep the Libyan population from suffering. Uranium bombs mean that the genetic code in the people is broken. The nano-particles will give rise to the birth of mutilated children,” he said.
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Media Question West’s Double Standards In Arab World
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-03/30/c_13805722.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 30, 2011
Media question West’s “double standards” in Arab unrest
BRUSSELS: As rebel forces backed by Western coalition air strikes battled for advantage in fierce fighting with Libyan government troops, voices questioning the West’s “selective policy” in dealing with unrest in different countries in the Arab world became louder.
The United States, France, and Britain wasted no time in launching air and missile strikes on Libya just one day after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution mandating a no-fly zone in the North African country.
Apart from measures to set up the no-fly zone, coalition forces also have pounded armored vehicles, the heavy artillery of Libyan government forces, and a residential compound occupied by leader Muammar Gaddafi.
“The coalition has taken sides. It’s only targeting Gaddafi’s forces, including those that aren’t in direct action against the rebels. We have reports of air strikes against convoys far from the front line. This is a far cry from the U.N. Security Council resolution,” said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to NATO.
Russia, which abstained in the U.N. vote that sanctioned the military operation, has been voicing concern about civilian casualties and excessive use of force since the operation began.
Records showed that more than 100 civilians have been killed in the coalition bombardments declared to protect innocent Libyan people.
A sharp contrast to what took place in Libya, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent troops to quell opposition street protests in Bahrain.
The double standard is obvious in the Saudi behavior, said an article on the CNN website.
“In the eyes of many Arabs in the region, a deeply troubling Western double standard is emerging,” said Omer Taspinar, a professor at the U.S. National War College and director of the Turkey Project at the Brookings Institution.
According to Taspinar, many in the region are asking a simple question: Why is the West willing to intervene in Libya, while there is total Western silence about Bahrain?
In countries like Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, they accept or actively support constitutional changes, but in other Arab countries, like Bahrain, the rights of citizens are secondary to wider energy and security needs, Taspinar cited an analyst from Lebanon as saying.
Chanting its universal values, “the United States has often been unable or unwilling to live up to the values it preaches,” said Bernd Debusmann, a Reuters columnist.
So why Libya and not Yemen or Bahrain, asked Debusmann.
“Here is where lofty talk of universal values collides with self-interest,” he said.
Debusmann cited a speech by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a 2005 speech in Cairo: “For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy … here in the Middle East.”
Debusmann went on to explain U.S. favor for the current Yemeni President Ali Abudullah Saleh by quoting a recently disclosed cable from the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital that said “Saleh has provided Yemen with relative stability.”
U.S. President Barack Obama has left “more questions than answers about his emerging ‘Obama doctrine and what it means for other crisis in the Middle East,’” Reuters writer Matt Spetalnick wrote about the president’s speech Monday night.
“Embedded in Obama’s televised response to critics of his Libya policy on Monday night was an attempt to set forth his rationale for intervening militarily in some conflicts but not in others,” Spetalnick said.
Obama fell short of even mentioning Yemen, Syria or Bahrain, the latest hotspots of chaos in the Arab world, observed Spetalnick.
Obama is trying to “stake out a middle ground” on wider Middle East policy, said Spetalnick. The obscurity has already drawn a lot of criticism from the left and the right at home, he said.
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Syria Blames Outside Forces For Unrest
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110330/163289958.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
March 30, 2011
Assad blames Syria unrest on foreign plotters
Damascus: In his first address since the outbreak of anti-government protests in Syria, President Bashar Assad blamed foreign and domestic “conspirators” for the unrest.
Protests demanding radical change have been raging in Libya since March 15. Tens of people have died so far. The Syrian leadership pledged last week to implement economic and political reform. On Tuesday, Syria’s cabinet resigned in an attempt to appease demonstrators.
Assad said the aim of the conspirators was to “fragment and bring down Syria” and “enforce an Israeli agenda.”
The Syrian president slammed what he called foreign “plots hatched against our country,” saying that the people and leadership of Syria would overcome them.
“We should draw a lesson from what has happened,” Assad noted.
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Brzezinski Blasts Germany, Poland For Lukewarm Support Of Libyan War
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14953281,00.html
Deutsche Welle
March 30, 2011
Brzezinski criticizes German and Polish stance on Libya
In an interview with Deutsche Welle, former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski calls Berlin’s abstention in the Security Council an unfortunate decision. He’s also critical of Poland’s stance on Libya.
Zbigniew Brzezinski served as US National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981 and has also advised Barack Obama on foreign policy. He is a counselor and trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
Deutsche Welle: Germany, in a move that surprised many allies, decided to abstain in a UN Security Council vote on establishing a no-fly zone over Libya, siding with China and Russia, instead of its traditional allies France, Britain and the US. What’s your assessment of Berlin’s decision and the motives behind it?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: I think the motives behind it are understandable and credible and obviously rooted in Germany’s historical experience. However, from a strategic point of view I think it was an unfortunate decision. It seems to me that the crisis involving Libya is a crisis that provides the West with a rather unique opportunity for united action and I would have been more pleased if Germany had chosen to be in some fashion part of it, even if not necessarily a direct military participant.
I may say in passing that I feel the same way about the somewhat passively neutral stand that Poland has taken on this issue. And for obvious reasons I have an interest in observing how Poland conducts itself in the international arena.
….
I think it was unfortunate that for whatever reasons Germany took that stance, because I think what is involved here is a missed opportunity to underline, to affirm something that is desirable and important, namely the ability of the West to act in common.
You have supported military action against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. But isn’t there a real danger that this protracted conflict could drag on for a long time and turn into a slippery slope that makes NATO ground troops necessary to finally end the violence?
The more united the West is, the shorter the conflict will be. Because obviously Gadhafi and his associates want to prolong the conflict, create a stalemate and in some fashion remain in power. So it’s not irrelevant to the outcome how united the West is and how determined it is. I think if it is determined and if it applies its military efforts with some degree of firmness bearing in mind that the UN resolution permits all necessary actions I think the chances are that we will avoid a protracted conflict.
I think the only possible outcome that assures security for Libyan people and their freedom of choice politically is an outcome that does not include him as part of the political picture.
While the West is engaged in Libya, it appears that many other Arab regimes are also on the brink of collapse. Do you also consider the intervention in Libya as a warning shot for other Arab rulers as the French President has said?
I think each case has to be looked at on its own merit in terms both of the possibilities of responding effectively to it and also in terms of the dangers that a particular case poses for the region and for international stability more generally. So I don’t think that you can draw some sort of arbitrary conclusion from one single case important though it is.
The situation in Syria, a key country in the Middle East, seems very volatile. How strong is Assad’s grip on power in your assessment and what would his fall mean for the region?
It’s very difficult for me to assess how strong is grip on power is, especially since it appears that he himself perhaps doesn’t know how strong it is….
The governments in Bahrain and Yemen, two vital US allies, also look very fragile. Can the US square the circle to support the democracy movements and at the same time prop up or help those autocratic rulers stay in power?
I think as I said each case has to be looked at on its own merits and in the context of its own specificity. In general, the United States has gone quite far in expressing its support for democratic movements. But the circumstances in each of these countries are not quite the same as they have emerged in Libya and for that matter they are not quite the same as they are now in Egypt or in Saudi Arabia.
Compared to the most other countries, the situation in Saudi Arabia has been relatively stable so far. Why in your opinion is this so and do you think that the Saudi King can feel ‘safe?’
He probably cannot feel safe entirely in view of what has been happening with his neighbors. Nonetheless, the fact is that the Saudi monarchy seems to have deeper roots in the society. The society still is somewhat more traditional and the country is very rich and the political leadership is intelligently sharing some of that wealth with the public. Whether that is sufficient to a degree only time will tell.
….
What’s your take on Iran, also a country where there have been some protests, but compared to other countries in the region, the situation there appears to be reasonably calm at the moment?
We have to bear in mind that there was a major outburst of democratic aspirations not such a long time ago and that it was effectively crushed by the regime….The urban parts, particularly in Tehran itself, are more similar to Turkey and through Turkey even to Europe. Certainly the young people who were demonstrating against the regime not such a long time ago looked very similar both in their appearance, but also even in their aspirations and language to the young people in Europe.
….
In the long run, I think that kind of theocratic, fundamentalist authority is as vulnerable or even more so than the hereditary royal systems. So that in the long run – provided the West does not isolate Iran to the point that Iranian nationalism is fused with fundamentalism – I think Iran will have to change and will change.
…NATO is a defensive alliance. If something happened that threatened its members, which includes the United States also, it would be duty bound to respond.
Germany has said that it wouldn’t take part in any military mission in Libya. Could Germany do anything else in your opinion to perhaps support the mission with nonmilitary means? Do you have any ideas what Berlin could do?
I don’t have any ideas that I want to propound publicly. But certainly Germany has ways of indicating its solidarity and its support for what is being done by the NATO alliance of which Germany is a very very important member….
Interview: Michael Knigge
Editor: Rob Mudge
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Argentine President Condemns NATO’s War In Libya
Reuters
March 30, 2011
Argentine President slams NATO for Libya mission
Buenos Aires, Argentina: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited his Argentine counterpart Cristina Fernandez to sign a raft of oil transport and other agreements on Tuesday (March 29).
….
Chavez spoke of progress in bilateral relations between the two South American countries.
But President Fernandez struck out against NATO in a thinly veiled attack on the mission in Libya.
Chavez has previously denounced military action in Libya, saying it is aimed at seizing the North African country’s oil reserves.
“When someone looks at the world, and observes the people who are supposed to be civilized resolving their problems by launching bombs, it really makes me proud to be South American and proud to be part of [the] UNASUR [political bloc] and to honor this tradition of peace and harmony that we have here in our beloved home of UNASUR,” Fernandez said.
Later, the two visited one of South America’s largest ship repair yards.
Tandanor is run by a workers cooperative and will build 16 new oil tankers for the Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, after a new contract was signed by Fernandez and Chavez at the site.
The tankers will cost US$83 million, measure 90 metres (295 feet) in length and have will each be able to ship between 2,500 and 7,500 cubic metres of petrol, according to the Argentine government.
Venezuela signed an agreement with Argentina last year to renovate its oil transport fleet, and includes the construction of tug boats and repair of various vessels.
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Sweden Accedes To NATO Demand, To Deploy Eight Warplanes For Libyan Campaign
http://www.thelocal.se/32886/20110329/
The Local
March 30, 2011
Government yes to Gripen deployment
The Swedish government has given the green light to sending JAS Gripen fighters to Libya following a request from the NATO general secretary, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for Swedish assistance.
During an extra meeting Tuesday the government decided to propose to the Riksdag that Sweden contribute to the NATO led military attack on Libya.
“The government has decided today … to put to parliament the proposal to participate with JAS Gripen (jets) in the international military operation in Libya under the leadership of NATO,” Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said in parliament on Tuesday.
….
Reinfeldt informed the Riksdag that there were many among the government parties who had wanted the fighters to be allowed to strike against land-based targets to protect civilians.
….
The government proposed eight JAS Gripen fighters to be sent, along with one Hercules aircraft and one reconnaissance plane.
In addition to the aircraft, around 130 personnel, including pilots and ground crew will be involved in the mission. However, the number of service personnel may be increased to a maximum of 250.
The government proposes to deploy the aircraft initially for three months. The cost to Sweden is not to exceed 200 million kronor ($31 million).
….
Sweden is not a member of NATO, although it has been in NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme since 1994 and participates in the alliance’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) force in Afghanistan with some 500 troops.
The last time Swedish fighter jets were in action was at the start of the 1960s, in a UN-mandated operation in the former Belgian Congo.
The Gripen fighter jets are made by Swedish defence group Saab, which is in the running with France’s Dassault and the US’s Boeing for a multi-billion-dollar contract to supply the Brazilian air force.
….
The Swedish Riksdag could be ready to reach a decision Friday.
====
NATO Orders Bulgarian Warship To Libyan Waters
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/30/c_13805590.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 30, 2011
Bulgaria sends frigate to patrol near Libya
SOFIA: The Bulgarian government here on Wednesday decided to send the frigate Drazki (Daring) to support the arms embargo against Libya.
According to the Government Information Service, Drazki would participate in the NATO’s operation Unified Protector aiming to patrol the approaches to Libyan territorial waters to reduce the flow of arms, related material and mercenaries to Libya.
The frigate would sail to the area of operation as early as April 15 for not more than three months since its deployment. Up to 160 people, including a 12-member group for special operations, would be on board.
Bulgarian troops would provide visible and significant contribution to the NATO joint efforts demonstrating determination and unified will…the government said.
====
NATO’s Assault On Libya: 1,800 Sorties, 214 Cruise Missile Attacks
Agence France-Presse
March 29, 2011
For no-fly zone, four NATO sorties: US military
-As part of “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” the US military also launched 22 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the past 24 hours, bringing to 214 the total number of missile strikes since the operation began on March 19, the Pentagon said.
WASHINGTON: Enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya required four sorties by NATO aircraft in the past 24 hours, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
As of 1000 GMT, NATO carried out four flights to police the no-fly zone against the Libyan regime, along with four other sorties in support of the mission, according to information released by the Pentagon.
The figures followed comments from US and allied commanders that the regime’s air defenses have been knocked out in earlier coalition raids, with Moamer Kadhafi’s aircraft effectively shut down under a no-fly zone now firmly in place.
The four no-fly zone sorties were flown by Canada and Spain, using F-18 fighter jets, said a US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
NATO is due on Thursday to take over from the US military the command of the coalition air campaign, launched under a UN resolution to protect civilians.
As part of “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” the US military also launched 22 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the past 24 hours, bringing to 214 the total number of missile strikes since the operation began on March 19, the Pentagon said.
The Tomahawks targeted “storage facilities” for the Libyan regime’s Scud missiles, the defense official said.
The international coalition carried out a total of 200 sorties in the past 24 hours, with about 60 percent of the missions flown by the American military.
During the same period, the international coalition carried out 115 strike sorties, in which combat aircraft sought out targets in Moamer Kadhafi’s armed forces.
Since the air operation began on March 19, the coalition has carried out 1,802 sorties.
President Barack Obama’s administration has said it will soon play more of a supporting role in the air campaign.
The number of “strike” missions by US aircraft has declined slightly in recent days.
In the past 24 hours, the United States conducted 52 sorties, about 45 percent of all the strike flights, compared to 63 percent flown by other countries.
====
70 Percent Of Britons Fear New Iraq-Style War In Libya
http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFLDE72S08220110329
Reuters
March 29, 2011
Britons fear Libya becoming another Iraq – poll
Seven of 10 Britons fear Iraq-style conflict
LONDON: Seven out of 10 Britons think coalition forces enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya could get sucked into another Iraq-style conflict, a poll showed on Tuesday.
The ComRes poll carried out for the Independent newspaper found 47 percent think the government was wrong to launch air strikes against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, while 43 percent approve of the decision.
Tuesday’s poll found that 71 percent of those questioned feared the intervention could drag on, despite Prime Minister David Cameron insisting that Libya is “not another Iraq”.
Respondents’ views were split along party political lines. A majority (58 percent) of Conservative voters, the leading voice in the coalition government, backed the intervention, while coalition partner Liberal Democrats and opposition Labour were less supportive.
A ComRes/ITN poll undertaken a week ago found that 43 of the public disagreed with the action, suggesting opposition was hardening.
ComRes interviewed a random sample of 1,000 adults by telephone between March 25 and March 27.
(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; Editing by Michael Roddy)
====
NATO’s Top Military Commander: Foreign Stabilization Force In Libya
Voice of America News
March 29, 2011
NATO Commander Says Libya May Need Foreign Stabilization Force
Al Pessin
The top NATO military commander says Libya may need a foreign stabilization force if rebels supported by international airstrikes succeed in ousting the country’s leader, Moammar Gadhafi. U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis made the comment in an appearance Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Admiral Stavridis says there has been no discussion at NATO of sending ground forces to stabilize Libya, but he believes it may be necessary.
“When you look at the history of NATO, having gone through this, as many on this committee have, with Bosnia and Kosovo, it’s quite clear that the possibility of [the need for] a stabilization regime exists,” he said. “And so, I have not heard any discussion about it yet, but I think that history is in everybody’s mind as we look at the events in Libya.”
….
He predicted that the military operation, plus international diplomatic and financial pressure and attacks by the rebels, will likely result in Gadhafi’s departure or overthrow.
And he said even without the specific mission to oust Gadhafi, NATO forces are operating under sufficiently broad rules that they can attack wherever necessary in Libya.
“I think that any Gadhafi forces that are demonstrating hostile intent against the Libyan population are legitimate targets,” said Stavridis.
….
The admiral’s’ NATO forces have taken command of the arms embargo and no-fly zone enforcement from U.S. Africa Command, and he says NATO will take command of the humanitarian and protection of civilians effort within the next day or two….
====
Videos And Text: Obama Establishes Doctrine Around Libya
http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-libya-doctrine-usa/
RT
March 29, 2011
Obama sets doctrine on Libya
In a televised international speech US President Barack Obama spoke for nearly a half hour on the NATO lead, US backed coalition at war in Libya.
The speech focused on Libya as opposed to grander strategy, emphasizing America’s responsibility as a global leader and the specific Libyan intervention.
“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and -– more profoundly -– our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are,” the US President said. “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
Although the details were sketchy, no vision of an endgame was given and many things remain unknown or elusive, one thing is for sure in Obama’s mind – Libya will not be another Iraq.
The US president wants to topple Gaddafi, but swore he would not fall at the hands of US troops. Obama insisted American involvement would end as soon as possible – whenever that may be.
“Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake,” he stated.
The man who campaigned on an anti-war and pro-diplomacy platform has found himself answering his formed supporters who want to know when Obama shifted his views.
“I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars,” Obama exclaimed, expressing his disapproval of Iraq, but support for his war in Libya. “I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests.”
The Obama doctrine is revealed – use force when I deem necessary.
However, some critics feel his approach does not go far enough.
“If we tell Gaddafi, ‘Don’t worry you’re not going to be removed by force,’– I think that’s very encouraging to Gaddafi,” Republican Senator John McCain told CNN.
On the other side of the spectrum, many Democratic leaders felt the lack of clarity and specific endgame goals was too similar of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Congress needs to ask some tough questions about the endgame,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich blasted Obama for his stance on Libya, saying “The economy is falling apart. Our cities are starved.
People are without health care. All we’re getting is war.”
He argued Libya could easily become Obama’s Iraq and has even proposed, along with Republican Congressman Ron Paul, legislation to defund the entire operation.
“The only real power Congress has here to assert itself as the people’s representatives is to stop funding,” Kucinich said.
The war power belongs to the democratic body, to the Congress, he explained. The US Constitution is clear.
Even President Bush went before Congress to get permission to enter into war with Iraq, he noted.
In addition, Kucinich explained using the military in conflict mode for humanitarian aid simply does not work.
“There’s no way you can avoid civilian casualties,” he said. “What we’re doing here is enlarging a humanitarian crisis with more people becoming refugees, with more civilians put at risk of injury or death due to the bombing.”
In order to get involved in a conflict congress must have a say – even if the conflict is by way of the UN, NATO or other organizations. This is the law of the United States, he explained.
As more and more people seek information on Obama’s war in Libya, it is becoming harder to get factual information from on the ground beyond what NATO and coalition governments claim.
Veteran war correspondent Keith Harmon Snow explained the US and coalition forces are leading an imperialist information war, targeting journalist and preventing truth from being told in Libya.
“Most journalists are not honest,” he said, explaining they are forced to tell half truths.
Journalists are embedded with one side or the other and what they can say is censored by the powers that be. Thus, no one really reports what might actually be going on or what motives may be at play in Libya.
The inability to tell the truth or report all the facts prevents the public from knowing why America may really be in Libya – humanitarianism, access to resources or imperialism.
Radio host Alex Jones argued the war is full of classic propaganda and misinformation, and the US has no business being involved.
The same formula that was used in past interventions is playing out again, he said. Even al-Qaeda is part of the mix. Jones argued the terrorist organization was created by the CIA. It is all part of a major globalist agenda to take away American liberties.
“British Special Forces, US Special Forces were there [Libya] before this began,” said Jones. “The west is setting a precedent through the UN that they can fund rebels to start wars against regimes not favorable to the globalist system.”
Libya is just another piece of the puzzle. It is the beginning of a new front of a global war – it is not humanitarian.
This has nothing to do with humanitarianism, Jones argued. It is about the new world order and their army – al-Qaeda – which is used to strike at America, Russia and others to progress the globalist agenda.
====
France Sends Envoy To Libyan Rebel Base: Report
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/30/c_13803989.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 30, 2011
France sends envoy to Libyan rebels base in Benghazi: press
PARIS: France has sent an envoy to Benghazi in eastern Libya where the rebels are based, local press quoted an unnamed official on Tuesday as saying.
According to AFP, the veteran French diplomat Antoine Sivan, 55 years old and an Arabic speaker, departed France on Sunday and was on the way to Benghazi via Egypt.
Benghazi is the stronghold of Libyan rebels and now locates their rebel administration National Transition Council (NTC), which France has taken the lead to recognize as the unique legitimate body to represent Libya people.
France has expressed the intention to dispatch an “ambassador” to the rebels’ base in Benghazi after two rebel representatives had a talk with President Nicolas Sarkozy in Elysee Palace on March 10. French foreign ministry later on received rebel representatives one more time and said they had regular contacts with the rebels’ body.
There was no official confirmation from the French administration about the “ambassador,” but local press said a possible confirmation could be unveiled on the sidelines of the Libya-focused international meeting hosting over 35 nations in London.
….
====
Qatar Launches Television Channel For Libyan Insurgents
http://en.rian.ru/trend/libya_2011/
Russian Information Agency Novosti
March 30, 2011
Libyan opposition launches TV channel with Qatar
The Libyan opposition is launching a satellite television channel, Ahrar TV, on Wednesday with the help of the Qatari government in counterbalance to state-controlled media.
====
Rimbaud: Evil
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Arthur Rimbaud
Evil (1870)
Translated by Paul Schmidt
While the red-stained mouths of machine guns ring
Across the infinite expanse of day;
While red or green, before their posturing King,
The massed battalions break and melt away;
And while a monstrous frenzy runs a course
That makes of a thousand men a smoking pile -
Poor fools! – dead, in summer, in the grass,
On Nature’s breast, who meant these men to smile;
There is a God, who smiles upon us through
The gleam of gold, the incense-laden air,
Who drowses in a cloud of murmured prayer,
And only wakes when weeping mothers bow
Themselves in anguish, wrapped in old black shawls -
And their last small coin into his coffer falls.
Le Mal
Tandis que les crachats rouges de la mitraille
Sifflent tout le jour par l’infini du ciel bleu;
Qu’écarlates ou verts, près du Roi qui les raille,
Croulent les bataillons en masse dans le feu;
Tandis qu’une folie épouvantable, broie
Et fait de cent milliers d’hommes un tas fumant;
- Pauvres morts dans l’été, dans l’herbe, dans ta joie,
Nature, ô toi qui fis ces hommes saintement !… -
- Il est un Dieu qui rit aux nappes damassées
Des autels, à l’encens, aux grands calices d’or;
Qui dans le bercement des hosanna s’endort,
Et se réveille quand des mères, ramassées
Dans l’angoisse et pleurant sous leur vieux bonnet noir,
Lui donnent un gros sou lié dans leur mouchoir!
Barack Hussein Reagan And Ronald Wilson Obama On Libya
Stop NATO
March 29, 2011
Barack Hussein Reagan And Ronald Wilson Obama On Libya
Compiled by Rick Rozoff
Ronald Reagan (RR) April 14, 1986
Barack Obama (BO) March 28, 2011
====
RR:
At 7 o’clock this evening eastern time air and naval forces of the United States launched a series of strikes against the headquarters, terrorist facilities, and military assets that support Mu`ammar Qadhafi’s subversive activities.
BO:
Confronted by…brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, I ordered warships into the Mediterranean…It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen. And so nine days ago…I authorized military action….
RR:
Several weeks ago in New Orleans, I warned Colonel Qadhafi we would hold his regime accountable….
BO:
Ten days ago, having tried to end the violence without using force, the international community offered Gaddafi a final chance to stop his campaign of killing, or face the consequences.
RR:
Colonel Qadhafi is not only an enemy of the United States. His record of subversion and aggression against the neighboring States in Africa is well documented and well known. He has ordered the murder of fellow Libyans in countless countries.
BO:
For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant – Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world – including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents.
RR:
Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again.
BO:
So for those who doubted our capacity to carry out this operation, I want to be clear: the United States of America has done what we said we would do.
RR:
To our friends and allies in Europe who cooperated in today’s mission, I would only say you have the permanent gratitude of the American people.
BO:
In this effort, the United States has not acted alone….Our most effective alliance, NATO, has taken command of the enforcement of the arms embargo and No Fly Zone.
RR:
Self-defense is not only our right, it is our duty. It is the purpose behind the mission undertaken tonight.
BO:
[W]hen our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act. That is what happened in Libya over the course of these last six weeks….I have made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies, and our core interests.
RR:
I have no illusion that tonight’s action will ring down the curtain on Qadhafi’s reign of terror. But this mission, violent though it was, can bring closer a safer and more secure world for decent men and women. We will persevere.
BO:
That is not to say that our work is complete….Gaddafi has not yet stepped down from power, and until he does, Libya will remain dangerous.
RR:
Tonight I salute the skill and professionalism of the men and women of our Armed Forces who carried out this mission. It’s an honor to be your Commander in Chief.
BO:
I want to begin by paying tribute to our men and women in uniform who, once again, have acted with courage, professionalism and patriotism. They have moved with incredible speed and strength.
RR:
We Americans are slow to anger. We always seek peaceful avenues before resorting to the use of force – and we did. We tried quiet diplomacy, public condemnation, economic sanctions, and demonstrations of military force. None succeeded. Despite our repeated warnings, Qadhafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation….
BO:
For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and advocate for human freedom. Mindful of the risks and costs of military action, we are naturally reluctant to use force to solve the world’s many challenges. But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.
Stop NATO News March 29, 2011
====
Updates on Libyan war: March 29
Libyan War And Control Of The Mediterranean
====
====
1. If Serbia Joins NATO, Russia To Defend Against Long-Range Missiles
2. Afghanistan: Insurgents Overrun District, Three NATO Soldiers Killed
3. Russia Warns Georgia Against Harboring Chechen Rebels
4. Africa Partnership Station: U.S., NATO Allies Drill In Gulf Of Guinea
5. German Navy Vessels Return To Mediterranean Under NATO Control
6. Pakistan: NATO Tanker Destroyed In Balochistan
7. 3,000 More Ugandan, Burundian Troops Headed To Somalia
8. U.S. Joins Scramble For Arctic With Nuclear Submarines
9. Alabama: U.S. Trains Romanian Pilots For F-16 Use
10. Afghan Boy Shot In Firefight With Australian Troops
11. Afghanistan: NATO Loses 100th Soldier This Year
12. NATO Air Strike Kills Seven Afghan Civilians, Wounds Five
13. War Stories: Promoting The War In Afghanistan
14. Georgia: NATO Membership To Foster “Unification”
====
1. If Serbia Joins NATO, Russia To Defend Against Long-Range Missiles
Bloomberg News
March 29, 2011
Russia Sees Security Concern If Serbia Joins NATO, Danas Reports
By Misha Savic
If Serbia joins NATO, the alliance will want to install long-range missiles in its territory, which Russia may see as a threat to its own security, Danas newspaper reported, citing Russian Ambassador to Belgrade Alexander Konuzin.
Konuzin said Serbia, which declared military neutrality in 2007 while being in NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, remains free to join any organization it chooses, “but we count that Belgrade will respect our thinking that entering NATO would represent a threat to Russia’s security,” the newspaper quoted Konuzin as saying.
Russia would have to “take military measures to remove such threats. The measures would not be against Serbia, but against the missiles,” Konuzin reportedly said in the interview, following last week’s visit to Belgrade by Premier Vladimir Putin.
====
2. Afghanistan: Insurgents Overrun District, Three NATO Soldiers Killed
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
March 29, 2011
Taliban overrun district; three NATO soldiers killed
Kabul: Taliban militants overran a district in the north-eastern Afghan province of Nuristan after overpowering local forces, while three NATO soldiers died in other attacks in the same region, officials said Tuesday.
Over 300 heavily armed Taliban insurgents attacked the Waigal district early Tuesday and captured the main town of Shamsul, provincial police chief Rahman Zahid said.
‘We had to retreat because we did not have enough men or weapons to defend the district against over 300 Taliban fighters,’ Zahid told the German Press Agency dpa.
The locally recruited policemen scattered to villages surrounding the district, he said.
‘There were no foreign forces or Afghan army soldiers and the Taliban had also blocked all the roads linking to the district,’ he said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement sent to media that their fighters captured 12 armed police and 19 vehicles during the operation.
The rest of the police fled the area after short resistance, he said, adding the Taliban had hoisted their flag in the centre of the district.
Major Tim James, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said the military was aware of the situation, saying ‘all I can say is we are looking into it.’
James said NATO troops were not stationed in the district.
Separately, three ISAF soldiers died Tuesday following two separate insurgent attacks in the eastern region, the alliance said in statements.
The military did not reveal the nationalities of the deceased, nor did it say where exactly in the volatile region the attacks took place. Most of the troops stationed in area are from the United States.
More than 100 foreign troops – two-thirds of them US personnel – have been killed in the Afghan conflict so far this year, according to iCasualties.org, an independent website that tracks NATO fatalities in Afghanistan.
….
Insurgents claimed to have taken hostage 50 Afghan policemen in the eastern province of Kunar on Sunday. Afghan officials confirmed having lost contact with up to 40 off-duty police personnel who were en route to their hometown when they went missing.
====
3. Russia Warns Georgia Against Harboring Chechen Rebels
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/29/48141800.html
Voice of Russia
March 29, 2011
Russia warns Georgia about Chechen rebels
Chechen militants who escaped to Georgia may be posing a threat to Russia, President Dmitry Medvedev`s representative on terrorism Anatoly Safonov said during a press-briefing in Moscow on Tuesday.
He said he did not rule out that Georgia could be standing behind some of the attacks carried out in Russia.
He advised Tbilisi to stay on alert about possible provocations by militants on Georgian territory.
====
4. Africa Partnership Station: U.S., NATO Allies Drill In Gulf Of Guinea
http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=6346&lang=0
U.S. Africa Command
March 28, 2011
Robert G. Bradley Completes APS Exercise Obangame Express 2011
By Petty Officer 1st Class Darryl Wood
U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs
DOUALA, Cameroon: USS Robert G. Bradley (FFG 49) concluded exercise Obangame Express off the coast of Cameroon as part of Africa Partnership Station (APS) West, March 23, 2011.
Robert G. Bradleym, along with ships from Belgium, Cameroon, France, Gabon, Nigeria, and Spain, participated in the exercise which focused on maritime domain awareness with the specific challenges faced by the interoperability of a multinational force to improve its proficiency at sea.
….
The pre-sail conference and post-exercise debrief was held at the Cameroon Navy Base in Douala….This multinational cooperation ensures continued success for interoperability and proficiency of the regional maritime stake holders in the Gulf of Guinea.
….
Robert G. Bradley, an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, is homeported out of Mayport, Florida, and is on a scheduled deployment to the U.S. Naval Forces Africa area of responsibility.
APS is an international security cooperation initiative, facilitated by Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, aimed at strengthening global maritime partnerships through training and collaborative activities….
====
5. German Navy Vessels Return To Mediterranean Under NATO Control
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
March 28, 2011
German navy ships in Mediterranean return to NATO control
Berlin: Two German navy vessels in the Mediterranean are to be placed back under NATO command, a week after the military alliance became involved in the Libya conflict, a defence ministry spokesman said in Berlin Monday.
But the warships will not be available for the NATO military campaign to deny airspace and arms supplies to Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi, the spokesman told the German Press Agency dpa.
The frigate Luebeck and the minesweeper will instead be deployed ‘soon’ with Active Endeavour, a NATO operation….
Germany upset its allies this month by abstaining when the UN Security Council ordered a no-fly zone to stop bloodshed by Gaddafi.
Germany then withdrew its warships from the NATO force, which is led by France, Britain and the United States. One task of the NATO force off the Libyan coast is preventing Gaddafi from shipping in arms.
Surveys show the German public, which tends to be pacifist, approved of Berlin’s efforts to keep its distance from the Libyan conflict, but senior politicians and think-tank officials in Berlin called the break in alliance ranks a blunder.
….
A third navy vessel, the Oker, a supply ship, is in the Mediterranean but will remain under direct command from Berlin. A frigate, the Hamburg, has left the Mediterranean to return to its home base in Wilhelmshaven.
===
6. Pakistan: NATO Tanker Destroyed In Balochistan
http://www.onlinenews.com.pk/details.php?id=177055
News International
March 28, 2011
Unidentified men set NATO container on fire
Quetta: Unidentified persons opened indiscriminate fire on a NATO container and set it on fire whereas the driver of the container received bullet wounds.
A NATO container heading towards Afghanistan from Karachi through Balochistan came under indiscriminate fire that was set on fire by unidentified men at Jeeva Cross in Kalat. The driver, Jahangir Khan, of the container sustained injuries whereas unidentified armed men fled from the scene.
Local authorities reached the spot of incident and removed the injured man to the hospital for treatment. They registered a case against the unidentified men.
In Sohrab drivers of the NATO containers blocked the road and staged a strong protest against the continuous incidents of such sort.
They urged the government to take solid steps for the safe passage and security of NATO supplies.
====
7. 3,000 More Ugandan, Burundian Troops Headed To Somalia
http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=143541
Azeri Press Agency
March 27, 2011
Burundi, Uganda to send 3,000 more troops to Somalia
Baku: Uganda and Burundi said on Saturday they have committed 3,000 extra troops to the African Union mission in Somalia, bolstering the fight against insurgents, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.
The U.N.-backed Transitional Federal Government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed controls part of the capital, and AMISOM — AU troops from Uganda and Burundi — is fighting to keep two hardline Islamist insurgent groups from taking over the rest.
….
AMISOM said in a statement on Saturday that after a visit to Mogadishu this week by Major General Godefroid Niyombare and General Aronda Nyakairima, the defense chiefs in Burundi and Uganda, the two countries committed more soldiers.
“In a joint statement to field commanders, the chiefs declared that both Burundi and Uganda had committed the additional 4,000 troops…and that they were already heading for pre-deployment training.”
“Each country has pledged a further 2,000 troops and anticipate an efficient deployment around the middle of the year.” Burundi has already deployed 1,000 of the 4,000 extra troops in mid March.
….
====
8. U.S. Joins Scramble For Arctic With Nuclear Submarines
http://blogs.forbes.com/williampentland/2011/03/25/u-s-navy-scrambles-for-piece-of-the-arctic-pie/
Forbes
March 25, 2011
U.S. Navy Scrambles for Piece of Arctic Pie
By WILLIAM PENTLAND
The U.S. Navy is staging exercises] in the Arctic Ocean this month with…nuclear-powered submarines.
The military exercises are designed to bolster U.S. claims on emerging – and likely lucrative – commercial opportunities in the region, which have attracted intense interest in recent years as global warming accelerates what appears to be the permanent loss of sea ice in the Arctic.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported in early March that 2011 has tied with 2006 for the record low sea-ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean (in the satellite record). By the mid-2030s, scientists have predicted that the Arctic will be ice-free for at least one month of every summer, which will expand to two-to-three ice-free months by around mid-century.
The U.S. Navy has deployed two nuclear-powered submarines off the coast of Alaska close to a temporary camp constructed on the ice roughly 150 miles north of Prudhoe Bay. The submarines are conducting military training exercises.
….
A delegation of defense contractors and military brass visited the camp last week, according to Reuters. The training was meant to ensure that the United States maintained access to the Arctic, home to the world’s largest undiscovered oil and gas reserves. Russia, the United States, Denmark, Greenland, Canada and Norway, which border the Arctic, and China are also scrambling to control the region and access to the commercial ventures there.
“It is a key potential transit line between the Atlantic and the Pacific,” U.S. Navy Captain Rhett Jaehn, told Reuters. “We want to be able to demonstrate that we have global reach. That we can operate in all oceans, and that we can operate proficiently in any environment.”
….
====
9. Alabama: U.S. Trains Romanian Pilots For F-16 Use
http://readme.readmedia.com/Romanian-Air-Force-Officers-Visit-Local-Alabama-Guard-Unit/2222661
Alabama National Guard
March 22, 2011
Romanian Air Force Officers Visit Local Alabama Guard Unit
by Alabama National Guard
MONTGOMERY, AL : Five officers from the Romanian Air Force visited the Alabama National Guard’s 187th Fighter Wing recently. Over their five-day visit, the Romanian officers received a broad overview of the F-16 fighter jet operations and sustainment programs of the Alabama National Guard.
The Romanian Air Force is considering plans to change their fighter aircraft force to the F-16, so the visit to a fully operational fighter wing was a source of invaluable insight into the requirements, maintenance, operations, reliability and capabilities of the F-16.
The visit was part of the State Partnership Program (SPP) which was created by NATO after the end of the Cold War. The SPP paired state National Guard organizations with former communist countries in a program intended to establish or normalize relations….
Romania, the first Warsaw Pact nation to enter the program, was paired with the Alabama Guard in 1994. Since then, Alabama Guard and Romanian military personnel have participated in dozens of training exercises, activities and assistance visits in both Alabama and Romania.
“The Alabama National Guard and Romania partnership is a mature relationship, established more than 17 years ago,” said Alabama National Guard SPP Coordinator, Lt. Col. William A. Overby. “Alabama continues to be a valuable partner in enabling Romania to build capacity to support deploying troops, enhance military capabilities, improve NATO interoperability, and reinforce the principles of responsible governance.”
The 187th Fighter Wing has plans to continue to share its lessons learned from years of F-16 experience with their Romanian Air Force counterparts through the Alabama National Guard SPP in the future.
====
10. Afghan Boy Shot In Firefight With Australian Troops
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/29/c_13803083.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 29, 2011
Australian troops involved in Afghanistan battle
CANBERRA: A young Afghan boy has been shot and is in a critical condition after a battle between Australian troops and insurgents, the Australian Defense Force confirmed on Tuesday.
….
According to the Department of Defense, one insurgent was killed in the battle and the local boy was later found with gunshot wounds to the upper body.
….
“He remains in a critical but stable condition, and has since been moved to intensive-care facilities in Kandahar,” the Defence said in a statement released on Tuesday.
….
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11. Afghanistan: NATO Loses 100th Soldier This Year
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7332827.html
Xinhua News Agency
March 28, 2011
NATO soldier killed in S Afghanistan
A solider with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed Sunday in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast in Afghanistan southern region, the military alliance said.
“An International Security Assistance Force service member died following an improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan today,” said a statement released here by ISAF.
However, the brief statement did not reveal the nationality of the victim, saying “it ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.”
Troops mainly from United States, Britain, Canada and Australia have been stationed in the southern Afghan region within the framework of ISAF to fight Taliban militants.
Sunday’s casualty brings to 100 the number of NATO service members, have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year.
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12. NATO Air Strike Kills Seven Afghan Civilians, Wounds Five
Associated Press
March 26, 2011
Afghan official: NATO airstrike kills 7 civilians
KABUL, Afghanistan: A provincial governor in Afghanistan’s dangerous south said Saturday that seven civilians were…killed when a NATO helicopter fired on two vehicles believed to be carrying Taliban fighters.
….
In the aftermath of the strike, coalition troops found bodies of civilians in the wreckage, NATO said. It did not released the number of the dead and wounded.
A statement issued by the Helmand provincial governor’s office said seven people — two men, two women and three children — were killed when coalition forces fired on the suspects. Those killed were in another vehicle traveling near the targeted ones. Five others Afghan civilians — a man, woman and three children — were wounded, the governor’s office said.
Helmand provincial Governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal condemned the civilian casualties.
The deaths came only two days after the international coalition…killed two civilians in the eastern province of Khost….
At least four other people were killed in three separate attacks in southern Afghanistan on Friday, including a child, a NATO soldier, and two civilians on a motorcycle.
….
A coalition soldier died following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, NATO announced. The international force provided no other details about the casualty, pending notification of next of kin.
The death brings to 26 of NATO service members who have died so far this month in Afghanistan.
….
Germany’s Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere visited Afghanistan on Saturday, his first trip to the battleground since taking the job this month. German lawmakers Friday endorsed sending up to 300 crew members to man surveillance planes in Afghanistan — a move meant to take pressure off NATO allies enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya.
….
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13. War Stories: Promoting The War In Afghanistan
http://rt.com/usa/news/promoting-war-libya-usa/
RT
March 26, 2011
War Stories: Promoting the war in Afghanistan
The Pentagon, NATO, and others fight an information war to go alongside the real ones in the battlefield. This was is to sell the reality of a conflict where people are dying and billions are being spent to a public back home.
“War is hell and that’s why you only go to war when it’s in the absolute interest to your national security,” said Matthew Hoh, a former US State Department official.
That harsh reality of war is one reason why coalition forces do battle with an information war.
They fight it alongside the real one playing out on the ground in Afghanistan, for example, so the war is not widely known by milestones such as surpassing the Soviet campaign there, becoming the longest war in American history, or costing an exceptional amount of money.
But instead, is a story of hope and reconstruction. That’s the NATO version told, for example, in a promotional film given to international journalists at the annual NATO summit.
Public relations efforts to sell the war are nothing new. And commander of the NATO forces – the United States – spends billions to sell its version of the war to the world through PR at home and abroad, state-sponsored media, and psychological operations.
For example, a leaked classified CIA document revealed a plan for allies.
“Astrategic communication program across NATO troop contributors that taps into the key concerns of specific Western European audiences that could provide a buffer if apathy becomes opposition.”
To fight declining public support for the war from France and Germany the CIA tapped Afghan women as the perfect messenger to make an emotional appeal about the Taliban and their aspirations for the future, as a woman does in the NATO video.
Some media has picked up on this message, too.
A TIME magazine cover equated pulling out US troops from Afghanistan with brutality against women when it pictured an Afghan woman with her nose cut off along with the headline “What happens if we leave.”
“The thing to remember about this poor girl – this happened while US troops were there,” recalled Hoh.
And some like feminist writer Jill Filipovic argue these PR tactics are an assault on women, too.
“I think it absolutely exploits the women’s issue and exploits women,” said Filipovic, editor of the blog Feministe.
“They certainly weren’t interested in women’s rights in that region until it became strategically important to them in the war on terror,” she said.
And it is not clear efforts like this even work.
“It’s impossible to tell and I would venture to say it’s been ineffective,” said Jake Diliberto, a veteran and critic of the Afghan war.
Maybe US defense secretary Robert Gates would agree. As his recent NATO speech can attest, he’s now resorting to scolding allies for getting ready to abandon the war.
Meanwhile Hillary Clinton said the US is losing when it comes to broadcasting the message on state-funded TV stations, “and unfortunately we are paying a big price for it,” she told members of Congress.
Even though the US has spent more than $1 billion dollars alone to broadcast its message to the Arab world where it’s at war through the state-funded news network Al Hurra, the network has locked in just a half percent of viewership.
All showing perhaps you can’t sell the war unless you have a buyer.
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14. Georgia: NATO Membership To Foster “Unification”
http://en.trend.az/news/politics/1851895.html
Trend News Agency
March 29, 2011
Deputy PM: Georgia may join NATO despite separatist territories
N. Kirtskhalia
Tbilisi: Georgia may be admitted to NATO despite the separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgian Deputy Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze said on Tuesday.
“There is a precedent, when Germany, which was 40 percent occupied by the former Soviet Union, became a member of NATO, and this precedent creates favorable conditions for Georgia,” State Minister for European Integration Baramidze said.
Georgia’s accession to NATO has been discussed for a long time. NATO officials periodically make statements about their readiness to accept Georgia into the alliance, but in practice the sides have not moved forward in this matter.
Baramidze said Georgia will join NATO as soon as it meets its requirements.
There is an Annual Action Program between Georgia and NATO, which the minister said is “an important mechanism” to join the alliance.
“NATO will decide on Georgia’s NATO membership as soon as we are ready,” Baramidze said.
At the meeting, in addition to Georgia’s NATO membership, the sides discussed the liberation of the Georgian territories by peaceful means and prospects of reunifying the country.
Although NATO membership is an important task for Georgia, the primary goal is peaceful reunification, Baramidze said.
“Being under the NATO umbrella will ensure our country’s security, peaceful and stable development, as well as unification,” he said, adding that he expects from Moscow a more constructive approach toward Tbilisi.
Military actions were launched in the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia in August 2008. Georgian troops entered Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia and later Russian troops occupied the city and drove the Georgian military back to Georgia. Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on Aug. 26 and established diplomatic relations with them on Sept. 9, 2008. Georgia’s autonomous regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia unilaterally declared independence from Georgia after the August 2008 war.
Updates on Libyan war: March 29
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Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
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Libya: Cruise Missile Strikes Exceed 200 In Latest U.S. Barrage
NATO Military Chief Opens The Door To Ground Forces In Libya
Fidel Castro: NATO’s Fascist War
American UN Envoy: Washington Can Arm Libyan Insurgents
NATO Conducts More Air Strikes West Of Libyan Capital
NATO Bombs Libya With Depleted Uranium Warheads
More Countries Slam NATO Attacks In Libya
U.S., Britain, France, Germany: NATO Quad Heads Of State Hold Libya Talks
U.S. Low-Flying Attack Planes Intervene In Libyan Ground War
NATO Official: Regime Change Is Goal, Even If UN Resolution Doesn’t Say So
Shadow NATO Member Sweden Offers Eight Warplanes For Libyan War
Canadian Warplanes Join NATO Bombing Frenzy In Libya
After Afghan, Iraqi Wars: U.S. To Use Romania Air Base For Libyan War
Joschka Fischer Excoriates Berlin For Not Plunging Into Libyan War
NATO’s “International” Partner: UAE Warplanes In Italy For Libya War
Libya And The “International Community”: Humanitarian Imperialism, Like Colonialism, Will Come To An End
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Libya: Cruise Missile Strikes Exceed 200 In Latest U.S. Barrage
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_17725146
Associated Press
March 29, 2011
U.S. launches new missile barrage at Libya
By Lolita C. Baldor and Donna Cassata
WASHINGTON: A U.S. defense official says U.S. ships and submarines unleashed a barrage of cruise missiles at Libyan missile storage facilities in the Tripoli area late Monday and early Tuesday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discussed military details, said 22 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from the Mediterranean — the most in at least several days.
The latest barrage raised to well over 200 the total number of Tomahawks that have been fired at Libya since the Western military intervention began March 19.
The bulk of U.S. and NATO missile and bomb attacks on Libya have targeted air defenses, ammunition bunkers and other facilities that support Libyan ground forces and enable NATO to maintain a no-fly zone over the country.
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NATO Military Chief Opens The Door To Ground Forces In Libya
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/03/nato-chief-opens-the-door-to-libya-ground-troops/#
Wired
March 29, 2011
NATO Chief Opens The Door to Libya Ground Troops
By Spencer Ackerman
The mantra, from President Obama on down, is that ground forces are totally ruled out for Libya. After all, the United Nations Security Council Resolution authorizing the war explicitly rules out any “occupation” forces. But leave it to the top military officer of NATO, which takes over the war on Wednesday, to add an asterisk to that ban.
During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island asked Adm. James Stavridis about NATO putting forces into “post-Gadhafi” Libya to make sure the country doesn’t fall apart. Stavridis said he “wouldn’t say NATO’s considering it yet.” But because of NATO’s history of putting peacekeepers in the Balkans — as pictured above — “the possibility of a stabilization regime exists.”
So welcome to a new possible “endgame” for Libya. Western troops patrolling Libya’s cities during a shaky transition after Moammar Gadhafi’s regime has fallen, however that’s supposed to happen….
In fact, Stavridis told Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma that he saw “flickers of intelligence” indicating “al-Qaeda [and] Hezbollah” have fighters amongst the Libyan rebels. The Supreme Allied Commander of NATO noted that the leadership of the rebels are “responsible men and women struggling against Col. Gadhafi” and couldn’t say if the terrorist element in the opposition is “significant.” But the U.S. knows precious little about who the Libyan rebels are.
The new prospect of NATO force on the ground in Libya seemed to alarm Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who got Stavridis to say that there’s “no discussion of the insertion of ground troops” in NATO circles. (And “to my knowledge” there aren’t troops there now, he said.) But Stavridis told Reed that the memory of the long NATO peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans is “in everyone’s mind.”
President Obama boasted about the rapidity with which the U.S. and its allies got involved in Libya. Some defense wonks, like Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security, criticized Obama’s team for not exhibiting diligent planning before Operation Odyssey Dawn began. Obama didn’t signal an endgame in his Monday speech, just vowing not to use any ground forces to get there.
That was exactly what President Clinton promised in Bosnia — right before sending 20,000 U.S. soldiers to enforce the 1995 Balkans peace deal. Because of the U.S.’ commitments to NATO and NATO’s commitments to enforcing the peace accord, U.S. peacekeepers ended up staying there for a decade. That history may be weighing on officers in Europe, but the Obama administration doesn’t seem to be so troubled.
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Fidel Castro: NATO’s Fascist War
Radio Cadena Agramonet
March 28, 2011
Reflections by Comrade Fidel Castro: NATO’s Fascist War
You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to foresee what I wrote with great detail in three Reflection Articles I published on the CubaDebate website between February 21 and March 3: “The NATO Plan Is to Occupy Libya,” “The Cynical Danse Macabre,” and “NATO’s Inevitable War”.
Not even the fascist leaders of Germany and Italy were so blatantly shameless regarding the Spanish Civil War unleashed in 1936, an event that maybe a lot of people have been recalling over these past days.
Almost 75 years to the day have passed since then, but nothing that has happened over the last 75 centuries, or even 75 millenniums of human life on our planet can compare.
Sometimes it seems that those of us who serenely voice our opinions on these issues are exaggerating. I dare say that we have actually been naive to assume that we all should be aware of the deception or colossal ignorance that humanity has been dragged into.
In 1936 there was an intense clash between two systems and ideologies of more or less equal military power.
The arms back then seemed more like toys compared with today’s weapons. Humanity’s survival was not threatened despite the destructive power and the locally lethal force deployed. Entire cities and even nations could have been virtually destroyed. But never was the human race, in its totality, at risk of being exterminated several times over for the stupid and suicidal power developed by modern science and technology.
With these current realities in mind, it is embarrassing to read the continuous news reports on the use of powerful laser-guided rockets with 100% accuracy, fighter-bombers that go twice the speed of light, potent explosives that blow apart uranium-hardened metals that have an everlasting effect on the inhabitants and their descendants.
Cuba stated its position regarding the internal situation in Libya at the meeting in Geneva. Without hesitating, Cuba defended the idea of a political solution to the conflict in Libya and was categorically opposed to any foreign military intervention.
In a world where the alliance between the United States and the developed capitalist powers of Europe increasingly take hold of the people’s resources and fruits of their labor, any honest citizen, whatever their standpoint to the government, would be opposed to a foreign military intervention in their country.
But most absurd about the current situation is the fact that before the brutal war broke out in Northern Africa, in another region of the world, nearly 10,000 kilometers away, a nuclear accident had occurred in one of the most populated areas of the world following a tsunami caused by a 9.0 earthquake, which has already cost a hard-working nation like Japan nearly 30 000 lives. Such accident would have not occurred 75 years before.
In Haiti, a poor and underdeveloped country, a nearly 7.0 quake according to the Richter scale, caused over 300 000 deaths, countless people wounded and hundreds of thousands harmed.
However, what was terribly tragic in Japan was the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant, whose consequences are still to be assessed.
I will only recall some of the main stories published by the news agencies:
ANSA.- Fukushima 1 nuclear plant is releasing “extremely high and potentially lethal radiations,” said Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the US nuclear entity.
EFE.- The nuclear threat stemming from the serious situation at a Japanese plant, following the earthquake, has triggered security revisions in atomic plants around the world and has made some countries paralyze their plans.
Reuters.- Japan’s devastating earthquake and deepening nuclear crisis could result in losses of up to $200 billion for Japanese economy, but the global impact remains hard to gauge.
EFE.- The deterioration of one reactor after another at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear center continued to feed fears of a pending nuclear disaster as desperate attempts to control a radioactive leak did nothing to provide even a glimmer of hope.
AFP.- Japan´s Emperor Akihito expressed concern about the unpredictable character of the nuclear crisis hitting Japan following the quake and tsunami that killed thousands of people and left 500 000 homeless. New quake reported in the Tokyo area.
There are reports talking about even more concerning issues.
Some refer to the presence of toxic radioactive iodine in Tokyo’s drinking water, which doubles the tolerable amount that can be consumed by the smallest children in the Japanese capital. One of these reports says that the stocks of bottled water are shrinking in Tokyo, a city located in a prefecture at more than 200 kilometers from Fukushima.
This series of circumstances poses a dramatic situation on our world.
I can express freely my views on the war in Libya.
I do not share political or religious views with the leader of that country. I am a Marxist-Leninist and a follower of Marti, as I have already said.
I see Libya as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and a sovereign state of the nearly 200 members of the United Nations.
Never, a large or small country, in this case with only 5 million inhabitants, was the victim of such a brutal attack by the air force of a militaristic organization with thousands of fighter-bombers, more than 100 submarines, nuclear aircraft carriers, and a sufficient arsenal to destroy the planet many times over. Our species had never encountered this situation and there had been nothing similar 75 years ago, when the Nazi bombers attacked targets in Spain.
Now, however, the criminal and discredited NATO will write a “beautiful” little story about its “humanitarian” bombing.
If Gaddafi honors the traditions of his people and decides to fight to the last breath, as he has promised, together with the Libyans who are facing the worst bombing a country has ever suffered, NATO and its criminal projects will sink into the mire of shame.
The people respect and believe in men who fulfill their duty.
More than 50 years ago, when the United States killed more than a hundred Cubans with the explosion of merchant ship “La Coubre” our people proclaimed “Patria o Muerte.” (Homeland or Death). They have fulfilled this, and have always been determined to keep their word.
“Anyone who tries to seize Cuba,” said the most glorious fighter in our history-”will only gather the dust of her soil soaked in blood.”
I beg you to excuse the frankness with which I address the issue.
Fidel Castro Ruz
28 March 2011
8:14 p.m.
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American UN Envoy: Washington Can Arm Libyan Insurgents
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110329/163270550.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
March 29, 2011
U.S. may arm Gaddafi rebels
Alexander Stelliferovsky
Moscow: The U.S. administration has not ruled out providing military support and arms supplies to Libyan rebels, ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said on Tuesday.
The U.S. goal is “squeezing Gaddafi’s resources and cutting off his money, his mercenaries, his arms, providing assistance to the rebels and the opposition,” she said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” show.
Asked whether that could include some military support, Rice said: “We have not made that decision, but we’ve not certainly ruled that out.”
According to some media reports, the U.S. has been looking for a legal framework to allow limited supplies of arms to the rebels if they can prove they need them to defend themselves from attack.
Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for Susan Rice, said on March 25 that UN Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973, imposing tough measures and a no-fly zone on Libya, “read together, neither specify nor preclude such an action.”
A diplomatic official from a coalition member state was quoted by Sky News as saying that the resolution “authorizes all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack.”
Moscow, which abstained from resolution to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, has urged coalition forces to act strictly within the UN mandate and answer directly to the Security Council.
On Saturday Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin said the alliance, now leading the coalition, risked being caught up in a war in Libya similar to the NATO mission in Afghanistan and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
NATO began taking command from the United States of all aerial operations to ensure the no-fly zone and an arms embargo in Libya on Sunday. The transfer of authority will take up to three days and should be completed by Wednesday.
Libyan television has reported that dozens of civilians have been killed and wounded in the strikes and that many health and education facilities have been destroyed. Coalition commanders deny the claims.
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NATO Conducts More Air Strikes West Of Libyan Capital
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/29/48117871.html
Voice of Russia
March 29, 2011
More Coalition airstrikes on Libya
The Western coalition has delivered more airstrikes at targets west of Tripoli. This comes in reports by the Arab TV channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, although they fail to specify the facilities destroyed.
Meanwhile US President Barack Obama rejected, in his address to the nation, the use of force to topple the Gaddafi regime in Libya, but admitted that the coalition did manage to check the advance of Gaddafi troops against the rebels.
Russia said earlier that the West’s interference in Libya’s civil war has gone beyond the framework of the relevant UN Security Council resolution.
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NATO Bombs Libya With Depleted Uranium Warheads
http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=275747&Itemid=1
Prensa Latina
March 28, 2011
NATO Bombs Libya with Depleted Uranium Warheads
London: Planes of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched about 45 bombs with depleted uranium warheads in the start of attacks against Libya, an anti-war intellectual activist announced.
David Wilson, an expert of the Stop the War Coalition in Britain, indicated that the enormous bombs, of about 907 kg each, and the missiles launched from allied ships contained the highly harmful radioactive mineral.
This type of armament, with depleted uranium warheads, “is the perfect weapon to kill a lot of people,” he warned, quoting a US expert in physical chemistry.
The radioactive substance, contained in the black dust that emanates to the atmosphere after the explosion, can harm the kidneys and cause lung and bone cancers, skin disorders, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosome damage, immunodeficiency syndromes and kidney and intestinal diseases.
Who and what are they protecting this time in Libya?, he wondered, as he recalled attacks against Baghdad, after which radiation levels exceeded between 1,000 and 1,900 times normal levels in residential areas, and recalled remarks made by British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who referred to the alleged humanitarian NATO mission in Libya “to protect civilians and their residential areas.”
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More Countries Slam NATO Attacks In Libya
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/stories/201103/s3177136.htm
Radio Australia
March 29, 2011
More countries slam NATO action in Libya
US President Barak Obama has defended his decision to involve the US in the Libyan conflict. Ten days after the international community intervened, President Obama used the prime time speech to answer his critics and explain his case. The speech came as Russia and Indonesia called for an immediate ceasefire and Turkey offered to act as mediator.
Correspondent: Karon Snowdon
….
SNOWDON: Public support is the lowest ever for a military intervention by the US, Professor James Fallows from the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney told Mark Colvin.
FALLOWS: If it becomes a matter of the three wars, the US is in, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, then the more that’s the case, then the worse it is politically, for Barack Obama because essentially there is for good reason, there’s no appetite for yet another war in the Muslim world or elsewhere, from the American public.
SNOWDON: Looking to the future, 35 governments and international organisations are meeting in London to try to lay the groundwork for a Libya without Muammar Gaddafi. It’s to be attended by members of the Libyan opposition but no representative from the government.
Speaking in Tripoli, the Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim again accused the international force of being responsible for civilian casualties.
KHALED KAIM: (translation) I would like especially to call upon the American President, Barack Obama, and all the other western leaders to be peace-makers, not war-mongers, and not to push Libyans towards a civil war.
SNOWDON: The international airstrikes have allowed the rebels to push back Libyan forces and have possibly turned the tide in their favour. They’re now eager to take Sirte the hometown of Colonel Gadaffi. If successful, it would be a powerful symbolic defeat that might undermine support for Gadaffi elsewhere.
Support for the NATO strikes though isn’t universal.
Russia and Indonesia are calling for an immedicate ceasefire. Concern over civilian casualties, the level of which is almost impossible to verify, is says Russia, the reason behind its call for a ceasefire.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the mission has gone far beyond the U-N mandate.
LAVROV: (translation) Reports are coming in about strikes being inflicted by coalition aircraft on lines of Gadaffi’s troops – reports about support for the attacks of the armed rebels. There is a need to negotiate, this requires an immediate ceasefire.
SNOWDON: Indonesia too is increasing its efforts for a ceasefire.
The Jakarta Post reports its lobbied Latin American states and India to jointly send a letter to the UN calling for a cease-fire and to promote a political settlement
Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa reportedly told the media any violence puts civilians in danger. Attempts to speak to a Foreign ministry spokesman were not successful.
….
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U.S., Britain, France, Germany: NATO Quad Heads Of State Hold Libya Talks
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/us-french-british-germa\
n-leaders-hold-libya-talks/articleshow/7812576.cms
Agence France-Presse
March 29, 2011
US, French, British, German leaders hold Libya talks
PARIS: The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and the United States Monday discussed NATO’s takeover of operations in Libya and voiced support for a conference on the country’s future, the French presidency said.
US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke during a video conference that also touched on reforms in Egypt and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the French president’s office said in a statement.
The four leaders discussed “the Libyan situation and the implementation of resolution 1973 the day after the transfer by the United States of the conduct of operations to NATO ,” the statement said.
“They also expressed their support for the conference taking place tomorrow (Tuesday) March 29 in London which should bring together the international community in support of the political transition in Libya,” it said.
The talks also focused on “support for the transition process in Egypt and the need to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process,” it said.
More than 35 countries will attend the conference in London on Tuesday to map out a future for Libya.
A spokesman for Cameron’s office said the British leader had told his counterparts that the conference should “strengthen and broaden the coalition of countries committed to implementing the UN resolutions” on Libya.
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U.S. Low-Flying Attack Planes Intervene In Libyan Ground War
Washington Post
March 28, 2011
U.S. deploys low-flying attack planes in Libya
By Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung
-Military officials consider AC-130s and A-10s well suited to attacks in built-up areas, although they…has been criticized as indiscriminate in past wars. The gunships, developed from a Hercules C-130 transport plane for use in Vietnam, have been used in virtually every U.S. military combat operation since then, including Grenada, Panama, Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. military dramatically stepped up its assault on Libyan government ground forces this weekend, launching its first attacks with AC-130 flying gunships and A-10 attack aircraft, which are designed to strike enemy ground troops and supply convoys, according to senior U.S. military officials.
Their use, during several days of heavy fighting in which the momentum seemed to swing in favor of the rebels, demonstrated how allied military forces have been drawn deeper into the chaotic fight in Libya. A mission that initially seemed to revolve around establishing a no-fly zone has become focused on halting advances by ground forces in and around Libya’s key coastal cities.
The AC-130s, which fly low and slow over the battlefield and are typically more vulnerable to enemy fire than fast-moving fighter jets, were deployed only after a week of sustained coalition attacks on Libyan government air defenses and radar. Armed with heavy machine guns and cannons that rake the ground, they allow strikes on dug-in Libyan ground forces and convoys in closer proximity to civilians.
Their use in Libya could be “a significant game changer,” said a senior military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.
Military officials consider AC-130s and A-10s well suited to attacks in built-up areas, although they pose more risk for pilots and their lethality has been criticized as indiscriminate in past wars. The gunships, developed from a Hercules C-130 transport plane for use in Vietnam, have been used in virtually every U.S. military combat operation since then, including Grenada, Panama, Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.
AC-130s were used to great effect during both of the U.S. attacks into Fallujah…in the early days of the Iraq war. In Afghanistan, the military considers them a particularly effective weapon against dug-in militants and commanders have frequently complained that they are in too short supply.
In Libya, “we are determined to step up the mission, to attack his tanks and [troop] columns every day until he withdraws,” a French official said of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and the forces loyal to him.
The AC-130s, which are flying from a base in Italy, were requested by Gen. Carter Ham, the senior American general overseeing the battle, and are likely to continue flying over Libya in the coming days as allied forces attempt to increase the pressure on Gaddafi’s ground forces….
In response to the rebel advance Gaddafi’s ground troops appear to be digging in and moving tanks into the cities of Zintan and Sirte.
….
Meanwhile, the U.S., Britain and France were making their own preparations for stopping a ground assault by Libyan forces. There was little support within Obama’s national security team for a mission that revolved solely around a no-fly zone seen as likely to do too little….
Pushed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U. N. Ambassador Susan Rice, the administration took control of a British-French draft resolution for a no-fly zone that had been languishing at the U.N., worked with them to strengthen it and began making the case to the rest of the Security Council that stronger action was needed. The resolution passed on March 17, authorizing the use of “all necessary measures” to protect civilians and civilian areas under threat.
….
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NATO Official: Regime Change Is Goal, Even If UN Resolution Doesn’t Say So
Bloomberg News
March 29, 2011
NATO Allies Look to Tripoli to Topple Qaddafi in Libyan Endgame
By Leon Mangasarian
The U.K. and France are banking on Libyans in the capital Tripoli to give them an exit strategy as they try to work out how to topple Muammar Qaddafi.
With the rebels advancing on Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, about 570 kilometers (355 miles) from their Benghazi base, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron are exhorting Libyan officials to undermine the regime from within.
“Ideally, everybody wants the Libyan rebels to topple Qaddafi in Tripoli,” said Florence Gaub, a North Africa expert at the NATO Defense College in Rome. “Regime change is what it’s all about, even if the UN resolution doesn’t say this.”
….
“There are two options: either Qaddafi leaves the country or is killed,” said Mats Berdal, a professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. “And he’s not likely to leave Libya.”
….
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Shadow NATO Member Sweden Offers Eight Warplanes For Libyan War
Associated Press
March 29, 2011
Sweden plans to join Libya no-fly zone with fighter jets, but no ground attacks
-Sweden is not a member of NATO but has contributed ground forces to NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and the Balkans.
STOCKHOLM: Sweden plans to send up to eight fighter jets to help enforce the U.N.-mandated no-fly zone over Libya after receiving a request for assistance from NATO, the prime minister said Tuesday.
….
The Swedish offer also includes a transport plane and 130 personnel and will be made available for three months, Reinfeldt told lawmakers….
Veronika Wand-Danielsson, Sweden’s ambassador to NATO, told AP that alliance chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen made an informal request last week to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt about contributing to the operation.
With a long tradition of neutrality in war, Sweden is not a member of NATO but has contributed ground forces to NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and the Balkans.
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Canadian Warplanes Join NATO Bombing Frenzy In Libya
Canadian Press
March 28, 2011
Canadian jets bomb second Libyan ammo dump; take greater role in air war
By: Murray Brewster
OTTAWA: Canadian CF-18s flattened an ammunition depot and have co-ordinated other coalition air raids over Libya involving up to 20 warplanes, the military confirmed Monday.
A reinforced bunker, 92 kilometres south of the battered city of Misrata, was hit with 225-kilogram, laser-guided bombs. It was the second ammunition dump taken out by the Canadian air contingent in a week.
Four Hornet jetfighters from 425 Squadron out of Bagotville, Que., took part in the Sunday raid.
….
[Lt.-Col. Chris] Lemay could not provide details about targets hit by other coalition aircraft, only that the missions were planned and co-ordinated by the Canadian air group operating out of Trapani, Italy.
The increased planning responsibility reflects Ottawa’s deeper involvement in the crisis following the appointment Friday of Canadian Lt.-Gen. Charles Bouchard as the NATO joint task force commander for the Libyan campaign.
There are seven CF-18s deployed as part of the international air effort.
One of two CP-140 maritime surveillance planes which were dispatched last week by the Harper government to enforce the UN arms embargo against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, flew its first long-range patrol mission without incident on Monday.
The military, which had provided daily Ottawa briefings on the Libyan campaign, said it would no longer give regularly scheduled updates on combat operations.
Information on Canada’s involvement in the bombardment of Libya would be dished out on a need-to-know basis, said a Defence Department spokesman, who was authorized to speak on background only.
Routine information would be posted to the department’s web site and intermittent technical briefings would be held only in the event of major developments, the spokesman added.
….
The tightening of information on the war also came as some defence observers, notably retired general Lewis MacKenzie, questioned how the mission is evolving and whether the coalition is exceeding its mandate by attacking Libyan military targets that did not present a direct a threat to civilians.
NATO took formal control of the no-fly zone and the naval arms blockade….
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After Afghan, Iraqi Wars: U.S. To Use Romania Air Base For Libyan War
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/29/c_13802202.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 29, 2011
Romania’s top defense council OKs U.S. aircraft to refuel in territory
BUCHAREST: Romania’s Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT) Monday decided
to allow the refueling on its aerodromes of the U.S. military aircraft used in Libya mission.
According to a press release of Romania’s Presidential administration, the CSAT has favorably replied to Washinton’s request on the basis of the Strategic Partnership between the two countries.
….
Currently, there are four U.S. military bases in southeastern Romania, including the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, which has been heavily used by the United States to transport troops and equipment for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A week ago, the same council decided to send a frigate carrying 207 Navy soldiers and officers to help enforce the embargo against Libya in the Mediterranean Sea.
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Joschka Fischer Excoriates Berlin For Not Plunging Into Libyan War
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2011/03/137_83986.html
Project Syndicate
March 29, 2011
Wrong German foreign policy
By Joschka Fischer
-Like the Balkans, the far shores of the Mediterranean are part of the EU’s immediate security zone.
-Germany seems to be congealing into an introspective provincialism, and that at a time when its potential, its leadership even, are more urgently needed than ever.
BERLIN: German chancellor Angela Merkel likes to navigate politically by line of sight ― and a very short line of sight at that. But when fog clouds your visibility, you’re not an instinctive driver (as seems to be the case here), and you have misplaced your eyeglasses, you place not only yourself at peril, but others as well.
That scenario sums up Germany’s foreign policy on Libya. The ensuing damage for Germany and its international standing is plain to see: never has Germany been more isolated. The country has lost its credibility with the United Nations and in the Middle East; its claim to a permanent seat on the Security Council has just been trashed for good; and one really must fear the worst for Europe.
….
And that will not be forgotten in the region, in the U.N., or among Germany’s friends.
All I can say is that I feel ashamed for this failure of the German government and ― unfortunately ― also for the leaders of the red and green opposition parties who at first applauded this scandalous mistake!
….
I don’t know what Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, could have been thinking. He rightly sided with the Arab freedom movements, then ― when the matter was decided ― traveled to Cairo’s Tahrir Square to receive his applause, and then rightly called for Moammar Gadhafi’s overthrow and his rendition to the International Criminal Court, only to chicken out when it came to the Security Council vote. The rationale has nothing to do with an ethical foreign policy or with German and European interests.
The situation in Libya, we are told, is too dangerous; Germany’s government doesn’t want to get caught on a slippery slope and eventually have to commit ground troops in a civil war. Well, if you’re afraid of slippery slopes, stay out of government, because balancing on all sorts of slippery slopes is what the job is about.
….
Libya is neither Afghanistan nor Iraq. Germany and other European countries went to Afghanistan in solidarity with a NATO partner ― our most important security guarantor, the United States ― after it had been attacked from there on Sept. 11, 2001. And solidarity within NATO ― a term all but shunned these days in official German circles ― is mutual: left to its own devices, Germany could one day wake up in a very precarious situation.
And Libya is certainly not Iraq, either, where the dominant Western power, the U.S., started a war for ideological reasons and against the majority of the Security Council, a war that that had to ― and did ― end in disaster.
If anything, Libya probably should be compared to Bosnia. It looks as if Merkel’s government today has adopted the position of Germany’s Greens back then! But, while the rejection of humanitarian military intervention had an element of tragedy in that case, Germany’s behavior today is pure farce.
Like the Balkans, the far shores of the Mediterranean are part of the EU’s immediate security zone. It is naive to assume that the most populous EU member state could and should keep out of a crisis situation in a region with immediate manifold European and German security interests….
And if you view Germany’s behavior in respect to Libya in connection with its whining and dithering regarding the consequences for Europe of the financial crisis, you can’t but start worrying about the future of both Europe and NATO. Germany seems to be congealing into an introspective provincialism, and that at a time when its potential, its leadership even, are more urgently needed than ever. Unfortunately, you can forget about that.
Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister and vice-chancellor from 1998 to 2005, was a leader in the German Green Party for almost 20 years.
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NATO’s “International” Partner: UAE Warplanes In Italy For Libya War
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/uae-warplanes-in-sardinia-ahead-of-dispatch-to-libya
The National (United Arab Emirates)
March 29, 2011
UAE warplanes in Sardinia ahead of dispatch to Libya
Haneen Dajani
ABU DHABI: UAE fighter jets due to help patrol the Libyan no-fly zone began arriving in Sardinia on Sunday.
The Emirates pledged six F-16s and six Mirage warplanes to the coalition, although it is not yet known when they will begin flight operations over the North African nation.
The UAE and Qatar are the only Arab countries to join the coalition with warplanes in patrolling the no-fly zone over Libya. The decision to involve UAE aircraft in the coalition was announced last Friday by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed.
….
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Libya And The “International Community”: Humanitarian Imperialism, Like Colonialism, Will Come To An End
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20113\28\story_28-3-2011_pg3_1
Daily Times
March 28, 2011
EDITORIAL: Libya and the ‘international community’
-We…need to question the term ‘international community’. Basically the term refers to powerful countries of the west led by the US. This term has been used whenever an imperialist intervention has taken place on so-called ‘humanitarian grounds’. The west continues to support autocrats in countries that do not threaten its hegemony, in fact help keep it intact, such as the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.
-Ever since the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has seen a horizontal expansion of capitalism into the formerly socialist countries and under the rubric of globalisation into the rest of the world. The world’s dominant countries, who like to call themselves the ‘international community’, have set out to re-conquer the world through military means. It started with the Balkans, and via Afghanistan and Iraq, is now being witnessed in Libya. The goal is Pax Americana (global empire).
Finally Pakistan has woken up to the disastrous military intervention by the western forces in Libya. On Saturday, Pakistan’s Foreign Office expressed serious concerns over the foreign forces’ strikes on Libya.
Briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said, “Pakistan’s position is very clear and principled. Everyone should respect a country’s sovereignty.” Mr Bashir said that the UN resolution on Libya was faulty and allowed the west to do “anything”. He further stated, “The prescription of democracy, pluralism and human rights is acceptable but it has to be done as people want and through peaceful means.”
The UN resolution on Libya is indeed faulty and quite vague. The consequences of passing such a resolution can now be seen. Even though it was not mandated in the UN resolution, the west now wants to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The mandate of the resolution was ambiguous. We also need to question the term ‘international community’. Basically the term refers to powerful countries of the west led by the US. This term has been used whenever an imperialist intervention has taken place on so-called ‘humanitarian grounds’. The west continues to support autocrats in countries that do not threaten its hegemony, in fact help keep it intact, such as the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia. Military dictators in Pakistan were supported by the west till the time that the tide turned against those despots.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has tried to justify this war by saying, “We are beginning to see, because of the good work of the coalition, his [Gaddafi’s] troops begin to turn back toward the west — and to see the opposition begin to reclaim the ground they had lost.”
The US and its allies should know that though their attacks on Gaddafi’s forces and air force have weakened the Libyan forces, there is little possibility that Gaddafi would give up easily.
It is now clear that the west actually set out to effect a regime change in Libya as has been stated by the British and French leaders. How is it justified that if the west does not like a leader, it intervenes militarily to achieve its aims?
This is not the first time such things have happened and is unlikely to be the last. Ever since the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has seen a horizontal expansion of capitalism into the formerly socialist countries and under the rubric of globalisation into the rest of the world. The world’s dominant countries, who like to call themselves the ‘international community’, have set out to re-conquer the world through military means. It started with the Balkans, and via Afghanistan and Iraq, is now being witnessed in Libya. The goal is Pax Americana (global empire).
The US is on the decline as an economic power despite the triumphalism of the US after the Cold War ended in 1991. The global recession may not have affected the US’s military power, but it increasingly resembles nothing more than a colossus with feet of clay. Europe, which was seen to be the next world power, has been rendered hollow after the global recession and remains the US’s subservient ally.
Libya is a relatively weak country when it comes to the global powers but this provides no justification for attacking it.
The world today is emerging as a multi-polar world where many countries like China, India, and Brazil are now economically getting stronger. Russia, too, is re-emerging as a global power.
History’s verdict will one day be witness to the fact that like colonialism came to an end, imperialism, whether masquerading as ‘humanitarian’ or otherwise, too will not last forever. The sooner the ‘international community’ comes to terms with this fact, the better all round.
Updates on Libyan war: March 28
====
Libya And The “International Community”: Humanitarian Imperialism, Like Colonialism, Will Come To An End
From U.S. To NATO Command Of Libyan War: Only Name Changes
Latin America On Libyan War: Saving Lives With Bombs Makes No Sense
NATO Runs Libyan War From Headquarters In Italy And Turkey
German Navy Vessels Return To Mediterranean Under NATO Control
French Destroyer Joins U.S. Amphibious Strike Group Off Libya
Bloodbath: NATO Bombs Path For Rebel Advance On Libyan Capital
French Warplanes Destroy Libyan Command Center, Government Soldiers Told To Defect Or Die
NATO Air Strike Wounds Libyan Civilians, Including Children, And Destroys Homes
Russian Foreign Minister: Military Intervention In Libya Not Sanctioned By United Nations Resolution
Russia Slams NATO Attack On Libya
William Blum: Libya And The Holy Triumvirate
NATO Operations: Turkey To Control Benghazi Airport, Blockade Libya
NATO Formally Takes Command Of Libyan War
Air Strikes Expanded Throughout Libya As NATO Takes Command
All-Out Assault: British Missiles Destroy Libyan Depots, Bunkers
1,424 Missions: U.S. Still Main Force In Libyan Strikes – Pentagon
Western Jets Bomb Residential Areas In Southern Libya
After Kosovo, Afghanistan: Dutch F-16s Fly Libyan Sorties
Istanbul Cooperation Initiative: “Soldier Of Fortune” NATO Hands Libyan Oil To Persian Gulf States
NATO Warplanes Launch Fresh Assault On Libyan Capital
US-Led Libyan Ground Assault Planned
Pentagon Chief: “No Idea” How Long Libyan Campaign Will Last
“Odyssey” Nor Bringing “Dawn” To Libya
Libya: NATO Terrorizing, Killing Civilians
Open Letter From Russian Doctors In Libya To The President Of The Russian Federation
Libya Conflict Highlights NATO’s Imperialist Mission
Syria Being Prepared For Libya Scenario
====
Libya And The “International Community”: Humanitarian Imperialism, Like Colonialism, Will Come To An End
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20113\28\story_28-3-2011_pg3_1
Daily Times
March 28, 2011
EDITORIAL: Libya and the ‘international community’
-We…need to question the term ‘international community’. Basically the term refers to powerful countries of the west led by the US. This term has been used whenever an imperialist intervention has taken place on so-called ‘humanitarian grounds’. The west continues to support autocrats in countries that do not threaten its hegemony, in fact help keep it intact, such as the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.
-Ever since the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has seen a horizontal expansion of capitalism into the formerly socialist countries and under the rubric of globalisation into the rest of the world. The world’s dominant countries, who like to call themselves the ‘international community’, have set out to re-conquer the world through military means. It started with the Balkans, and via Afghanistan and Iraq, is now being witnessed in Libya. The goal is Pax Americana (global empire).
Finally Pakistan has woken up to the disastrous military intervention by the western forces in Libya. On Saturday, Pakistan’s Foreign Office expressed serious concerns over the foreign forces’ strikes on Libya.
Briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said, “Pakistan’s position is very clear and principled. Everyone should respect a country’s sovereignty.” Mr Bashir said that the UN resolution on Libya was faulty and allowed the west to do “anything”. He further stated, “The prescription of democracy, pluralism and human rights is acceptable but it has to be done as people want and through peaceful means.”
The UN resolution on Libya is indeed faulty and quite vague. The consequences of passing such a resolution can now be seen. Even though it was not mandated in the UN resolution, the west now wants to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The mandate of the resolution was ambiguous. We also need to question the term ‘international community’. Basically the term refers to powerful countries of the west led by the US. This term has been used whenever an imperialist intervention has taken place on so-called ‘humanitarian grounds’. The west continues to support autocrats in countries that do not threaten its hegemony, in fact help keep it intact, such as the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia. Military dictators in Pakistan were supported by the west till the time that the tide turned against those despots.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has tried to justify this war by saying, “We are beginning to see, because of the good work of the coalition, his [Gaddafi’s] troops begin to turn back toward the west — and to see the opposition begin to reclaim the ground they had lost.”
The US and its allies should know that though their attacks on Gaddafi’s forces and air force have weakened the Libyan forces, there is little possibility that Gaddafi would give up easily.
It is now clear that the west actually set out to effect a regime change in Libya as has been stated by the British and French leaders. How is it justified that if the west does not like a leader, it intervenes militarily to achieve its aims?
This is not the first time such things have happened and is unlikely to be the last. Ever since the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has seen a horizontal expansion of capitalism into the formerly socialist countries and under the rubric of globalisation into the rest of the world. The world’s dominant countries, who like to call themselves the ‘international community’, have set out to re-conquer the world through military means. It started with the Balkans, and via Afghanistan and Iraq, is now being witnessed in Libya. The goal is Pax Americana (global empire).
The US is on the decline as an economic power despite the triumphalism of the US after the Cold War ended in 1991. The global recession may not have affected the US’s military power, but it increasingly resembles nothing more than a colossus with feet of clay. Europe, which was seen to be the next world power, has been rendered hollow after the global recession and remains the US’s subservient ally.
Libya is a relatively weak country when it comes to the global powers but this provides no justification for attacking it.
The world today is emerging as a multi-polar world where many countries like China, India, and Brazil are now economically getting stronger. Russia, too, is re-emerging as a global power.
History’s verdict will one day be witness to the fact that like colonialism came to an end, imperialism, whether masquerading as ‘humanitarian’ or otherwise, too will not last forever. The sooner the ‘international community’ comes to terms with this fact, the better all round.
====
From U.S. To NATO Command Of Libyan War: Only Name Changes
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-03/28/c_13801887.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 28, 2011
From U.S. to NATO: a name change game
-”[E]ven if it does hand over the command, it will still back the military operations. U.S. cruise missiles, submarines, destroyers and aircraft carriers will continue to provide military support.”
BEIJING: NATO member states decided on Sunday to take over full command of the military operations against Libya from the United States, a move many believe does not change the dominant role of the United States since NATO is a U.S.-led military alliance.
The attitude change of the United States, rare in its diplomatic and military history, is only a name change game designed to ease its increasing pressure domestically and internationally.
….
However, if Washington actively directed and participated in the military action against Libya, Obama might be regarded as a pro-war president. As Obama has vowed to win his re-election, he has to be cautious.
….
Meanwhile, many countries said they opposed West-led operations against Libya in the name of enforcing the UN resolution, calling on countries involved to hand power back to the Libyan people.
Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, who used to support the creation of a no-fly zone, said the military operation has overstepped the UN resolution.
Under these circumstances, Obama’s decision to transfer command to NATO was to shift domestic attention and shake off his political predicament, media reported.
LEADER POSITION TO CONTINUE
Although the United States is handing over command of the military intervention against Libya to NATO, its influence and leadership will likely continue. Analysts said since NATO is a U.S.-led military alliance, the United States would maintain its leadership position in military operations against Libya even after it hands command off to NATO.
Brian Becker, national director of the ANSWER coalition, an anti-war umbrella group, said during its protest outside the White House Saturday that transferring command to NATO is merely self-deception.
“That’s a fraud,” said Becker. “When the U.S. hands the mission to NATO, it’s handing the mission over to itself.” He said NATO has been a U.S.-led military bloc since it was formed.
The U.S.’s intention is only camouflaged by its effort to shift command to NATO. On Thursday, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told CNN the alliance would take over the command of enforcing the no-fly zone “in a couple of days” from the United States, and NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, would assume overall command of the mission.
Stavridis is a United States Navy four-star admiral who also serves as the current commander of U.S. European Command.
Handing over command to another party doesn’t change the nature of U.S.’s role in the joint military intervention against Libya, Gao Zugui, director of the Institute of World Politics of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations said.
“Because even if it does hand over the command, it will still back the military operations. U.S. cruise missiles, submarines, destroyers and aircraft carriers will continue to provide military support,” he added.
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Latin America On Libyan War: Saving Lives With Bombs Makes No Sense
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14944709,00.html
Deutsche Welle
March 28, 2011
‘Saving lives with bombs makes no sense’
-”Countries with a past of being colonized have another view of the world than Europeans. I don’t consider the positioning of Latin America with regards to Libya as a strategic distancing from the United States but I do think that the Latin American countries discern the possibility that the military operation will culminate in the invasion and occupation of Libyan territory.”
The majority of Latin American countries do not agree with the legitimacy or practicality of foreign military intervention in Libya. Two German experts, Günther Maihold and Manuel Paulus, explain why.
Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin was expected to explain to the country’s congress on Tuesday why the country had voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorizes, among other things, the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya.
Deputies from the ruling party support the position of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, which is to back the majority of NATO and European Union nations in supporting the intervention.
However, the opposition has complained that backing the action contradicts the stance that most countries in the region are taking. Though Peru has broken off relations with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, that course of action has not been typical.
No: the prevailing response
Of the diplomatic voices coming out of Latin America, most are demanding a ceasefire and dialogue – disapproving of both the legitimacy and the practicality of Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya. “The idea of saving lives with bombs doesn’t make any sense,” said Uruguayan President Jose Mujica.
Brazil, the only other country with a voice and vote as a temporary member of the UN Security Council, refused to support Resolution 1973.
Günther Maihold, deputy director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, and Manuel Paulus, a political scientist from the University of Rostock, are united in identifying the main motive behind the condemnation from Latin America against the creation of a united front against Gadhafi.
A matter of principle
“The determining factor is the perception that this military operation is an act of aggression against Libyan sovereignty, like a foreign intervention into a country afflicted by civil war. This violates one of the fundamental principles of the external politics of Latin American countries, that of not meddling in the internal affairs of their neighbors,” said Maihold.
Paulus agreed, adding that there was another element.
“Brazil is trying to establish a multi-polar world order in which Washington does not play the principal role. Its position and that of its neighbors can only be described as a consequence of this,” said Paulus, adding that the policy of Latin American countries in relation to Libya cannot be explained solely from the point of view of its ambivalent relationship with the United States or Europe.
“Countries with a past of being colonized have another view of the world than Europeans. I don’t consider the positioning of Latin America with regards to Libya as a strategic distancing from the United States but I do think that the Latin American countries discern the possibility that the military operation will culminate in the invasion and occupation of Libyan territory,” said Paulus.
“They compare that scenario with the experiences of their own countries,” he continued. “It is fitting to ask if the past political and military excesses of the United States and Europe, as colonizers, as those acting in their own interests, as champions of ideological and economic systems, have weakened their credibility as protectors of the Libyan people.”
The burdens of the past
….
According to Maihold, the colonial and post-colonial traumas of Latin America continue to be “important rallying points of identity that influence analysis of current events.”
….
Author: Evan Romero-Castillo / rc
Editor: Rob Mudge
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NATO Runs Libyan War From Headquarters In Italy And Turkey
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/29/c_13802176.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 28, 2011
NATO command of Libya mission is based in Naples
ROME: NATO decided Monday to run the Libya mission, including enforcing a no-fly zone over the country, in Naples, Italy, under the command of Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard.
The alliance also said the operations had a secondary base in Izmir, Turkey.
Naples, around 200 km southeast of Rome, used to be the base for enforcing an arms embargo against Libya.
The latest development signified a significant increase of Italy’s involvement in the conflict.
Italy has strong historical, political, and commercial ties with Libya. The two countries reached a bilateral “friendship treaty” a month ago, excluding military action against each other. However, with the evolution of the situation in Libya, the Italian leadership declared the document null and void.
….
Bouchard was selected to head the operation codenamed “Unified Protector” on Friday before NATO members agreed on the transfer of command from the United States. The transition is expected to be completed no later than Wednesday.
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German Navy Vessels Return To Mediterranean Under NATO Control
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
March 28, 2011
German navy ships in Mediterranean return to NATO control
Berlin: Two German navy vessels in the Mediterranean are to be placed back under NATO command, a week after the military alliance became involved in the Libya conflict, a defence ministry spokesman said in Berlin Monday.
But the warships will not be available for the NATO military campaign to deny airspace and arms supplies to Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi, the spokesman told the German Press Agency dpa.
The frigate Luebeck and the minesweeper will instead be deployed ‘soon’ with Active Endeavour, a NATO operation….
Germany upset its allies this month by abstaining when the UN Security Council ordered a no-fly zone to stop bloodshed by Gaddafi.
Germany then withdrew its warships from the NATO force, which is led by France, Britain and the United States. One task of the NATO force off the Libyan coast is preventing Gaddafi from shipping in arms.
Surveys show the German public, which tends to be pacifist, approved of Berlin’s efforts to keep its distance from the Libyan conflict, but senior politicians and think-tank officials in Berlin called the break in alliance ranks a blunder.
….
A third navy vessel, the Oker, a supply ship, is in the Mediterranean but will remain under direct command from Berlin. A frigate, the Hamburg, has left the Mediterranean to return to its home base in Wilhelmshaven.
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French Destroyer Joins U.S. Amphibious Strike Group Off Libya
http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=6343&lang=0
U.S. Africa Command
March 28, 2011
French Destroyer Forbin Joins Kearsarge ESG
By Petty Officer 1st Class Phil Beaufort
Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn Public Affairs
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: Commander Jean-Mathieu Rey, commanding officer of the French ship FS Forbin (D 620), and several crew members made a visit to the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) while off the coast of Libya March 26, 2011.
The French ship joined Joint Task Force (JTF) Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector last week after recently completing a four-month deployment to the Arabian Gulf.
….
Captain Dan Shaffer, commander of the Destroyer Squadron 60, currently embarked aboard Kearsarge, said the destroyer Forbin has been working with air controllers on Kearsarge to help control the air space in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn.
….
According to Commander of Expeditionary Strike Group Five, Rear Admiral Peg Klein, the combined staffs were able to accomplish a lot in a short visit.
….
With its advanced anti-air capability and well trained crew, Klein added that Forbin is a real asset to the mission.
….
Captain Peter Pagano, commander of Amphibious Squadron Four, said that the entire JTF is benefiting from working with foreign military services.
….
Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn is the U.S. Africa Command task force established to provide operational and tactical command and control of U.S. military forces….JTF Odyssey Dawn is commanded by U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel L. Locklear, III.
====
Bloodbath: NATO Bombs Path For Rebel Advance On Libyan Capital
http://rt.com/news/libya-opposition-nato-interference/
RT
March 28, 2011
Fighting moves to Libya’s center, NATO accused of taking sides
Armed conflict between Gaddafi’s troops and Libyan rebels has moved away from the sea coast into the central part of the country. Meanwhile, Russia has said NATO’s actions contradict the UN resolution and called them interference in a civil war.
There are conflicting reports on whether the opposition forces have captured the city of Sirt, which holds a special symbolic value as Gaddafi’s hometown.
On Monday, state television reported coalition planes had bombed the city of Sabha in central Libya at dawn, killing several civilians. British air force warplanes have also destroyed ammunition depots used by Gaddafi’s forces.
The situation in the capital Tripoli remains dire as medical supplies as well as food, water and fuel continue to dwindle.
“We have been told that in just a matter of days the city will completely have run out of water,” said RT’s correspondent Paula Slier who is in Tripoli.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered NATO’s approval of a “no-fly plus” plan and their consequent actions interference in a Libyan civil war.
NATO took the lead in the military operation in Libya, approving a so-called “no-fly plus” plan that will make the alliance responsible for protecting civilians as well as enforcing a no-fly zone and an arms embargo on Sunday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mentioned reports about the coalition’s air strikes on Gaddafi’s troops and reports about NATO’s support of the rebels’ offensive.
“There is a clear contradiction here. We believe that interference of the coalition in the internal – as a matter of fact – civil war, has not been sanctioned by the UN Security Council resolution,” said Lavrov.
Lavrov stressed again that the sole aim of the resolution was the implementation of a no-fly zone for the protection of the civilian population – a goal that NATO claims to support.
….
As NATO proceeds with the transfer of control over the mission, its first planes took to enforce the no-fly zone over Libya on Sunday evening.
“Yesterday NATO aircraft flew the first no-fly zone enforcement over Libya,” said General Charles Bouchard, who is in charge of the operation called “Unified Protector”.
Cashing in on military success
Rebels have been able to make a dramatic advance in recent days, regaining control of such key strategic points as the town of Ras-Lanouf, Marsa-el-Brega, and Ajdabiya.
The progress has been possible due to the no-fly zone established by international forces, which seriously damaged Gaddafi’s air defenses and batteries.
With crucial oil ports now in the hands of the opposition, its representatives said they were producing about 100,000 to 130,000 barrels a day with plans to increase that amount to up to 300,000 a day.
According to AFP, the rebels have also promised to begin exporting oil “in less than a week.” They also announced that they have signed an oil export agreement with Qatar – the only Arab country known to have actively participated in the military operation in Libya.
Qatar has agreed to sell Libya’s oil on international markets, channeling the money back into the opposition’s accounts.
Since the beginning of military action in Libya, oil production has decreased to three times normal. Oil exports were practically paralyzed as world banks refused to accept any payments for Libyan oil in US dollars due to international sanctions.
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French Warplanes Destroy Libyan Command Center, Government Soldiers Told To Defect Or Die
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110328/163252709.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
March 28, 2011
French warplanes destroy Gaddafi’s command center
Paris: French military planes have destroyed the command center of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, spokesman for the French Armed forces Thierry Burkhard said on Monday.
NATO took over command of the coalition military intervention in Libya from the United States on Sunday. The mission is trying to ensure a no-fly zone and arms embargo over the country.
The strikes, conducted by two French Rafale fighter patrols, struck the center, located 10 kilometers from Tripoli, on Sunday.
No further strikes were conducted by French forces on Monday, Burkhard said.
Earlier on Monday, France and Britain urged Gaddafi’s supporters to “defect before it is too late.”
The rebel army, which has been fighting pro-Gaddafi forces since mid-February, has made rapid advancements into the west of Libya since the coalition mission began.
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NATO Air Strike Wounds Libyan Civilians, Including Children, And Destroys Homes
http://en.trend.az/regions/met/arabicr/1851537.html
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
March 28, 2011
Report: Civilians injured in coalition airstrike in Libya
A number of civilians were wounded in a coalition airstrike early Monday on a weapons depot in the south-west city of Jabal al-Sabha, dpa reported according Libyan sources.
The opposition Libya al-Youm said the proximity of the airstrike to stores and residential areas caused a number of injuries to civilians and destroyed several homes.
There were no numbers given for how many people were injured, but no deaths were reported.
According to the Libyan state-run JANA news agency, children were among the wounded.
NATO ambassadors decided late Sunday to take over control of all UN-mandated military operations in Libya, including any airstrikes aimed at protecting civilians from the embattled leader’s troops.
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Russian Foreign Minister: Military Intervention In Libya Not Sanctioned By United Nations Resolution
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=16094253&PageNum=0
Itar-Tass
March 28, 2011
UN Res 1973 not sanction interference in civil war in Libya – FM
“We believe that the interference of the coalition into the internal, civil war in Libya has not been sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council resolution,” Lavrov said.
At the same time, the minister stressed, “The protection of civilians in Libya is our priority.”
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http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110328/163245789.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
March 28, 2011
Intervention in Libya at odds with UN resolution – Russia’s Lavrov
Topic: International sanctions against Gaddafi regime
Moscow: The military intervention by the Western-led coalition force in Libya’s civil war is out of tune with the relevant UN Security Council resolution, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.
“We believe that the coalition’s intervention in the civil war [in Libya] has not, essentially, been sanctioned by the UN Security Council resolution,” said, adding its only purpose “is to ensure the protection of the civilian population.”
“This resolution contains no other goals,” he said.
Russia abstained from the Security Council vote.
On Sunday, NATO began taking command of all aerial operations in Libya from the US-led force. The transfer of authority will take up to three days.
Russia abstained from a UN Security Council resolution adopted on March 17 imposing a no-fly zone over Libya….
Western-led military strikes against Gaddafi, whose forces have been attacking rebels in the east of the North African country since mid-February, began last Saturday.
Libyan television has reported that at least 100 civilians have been killed and over 150 wounded in the strikes and that many health and education facilities have been destroyed….
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Russia Slams NATO Attack On Libya
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1584701
RTT News
March 28, 2011
Russia Slams NATO Attack On Libya
Russia has criticized NATO’s military intervention in Libya, which it said was not in conformity with the U.N. resolution that authorized no-fly zones.
Responding to questions at a joint news conference along with his visiting Kyrgyz counterpart Ruslan Kazakbayev in Moscow on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We believe that the coalition’s intervention in the civil war [in Libya] has not, essentially, been sanctioned by the UN Security Council resolution.
“This resolution contains no other goals than to ensure the protection of the civilian population,” he added. He made Moscow’s stand on the Western-led coalition force’s aerial strikes in the north African country clear by saying that “the interference of the coalition into the internal, civil war in Libya has not been sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council resolution.”
He reminded that the “protection of civilians in Libya is our priority.”
A UNSC resolution, passed on March 17, decided to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to protect the civilians from aerial bombings and authorized any military action needed to implement such a ban, short of an occupation.
Despite having veto power, Russia abstained from voting along with China, Brazil, India and Germany, while rest of the 15-member Council voted in favor of the measure.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went to the extent of comparing the resolution to “medieval calls for crusades.”
After a week of joint air strikes by American, British and French forces to enforce the U.N.-mandated no-fly zone over strife-torn Libya, NATO agreed at the weekend to take over the command and control of the military operations.
President Barack Obama is set to address the nation on Monday night that will answer questions over the objectives of U.S. military mission in Libya.
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William Blum: Libya And The Holy Triumvirate
http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer92.html
March 28th, 2011
The Anti-Empire Report
by William Blum
Libya and The Holy Triumvirate
The words they find it very difficult to say — “civil war”.
Libya is engaged in a civil war. The United States and the European Union and NATO — The Holy Triumvirate — are intervening, bloodily, in a civil war. To overthrow Moammar Gaddafi. First The Holy Triumvirate spoke only of imposing a no-fly zone. After getting support from international bodies on that understanding they immediately began to wage war against Libyan military forces, and whoever was nearby, on a daily basis. In the world of commerce this is called “bait and switch”.
Gaddafi’s crime? He was never respectful enough of The Holy Triumvirate, which recognizes no higher power, and maneuvers the United Nations for its own purposes, depending on China and Russia to be as spineless and hypocritical as Barack Obama. The man the Triumvirate allows to replace Gaddafi will be more respectful.
So who are the good guys? The Libyan rebels, we’re told. The ones who go around murdering and raping African blacks on the supposition that they’re all mercenaries for Gaddafi. One or more of the victims may indeed have been members of a Libyan government military battalion; or may not have been. During the 1990s, in the name of pan-African unity, Gaddafi opened the borders to tens of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans to live and work in Libya. That, along with his earlier pan-Arab vision, did not win him points with The Holy Triumvirate. Corporate bosses have the same problem about their employees forming unions. Oh, and did I mention that Gaddafi is strongly anti-Zionist?
Does anyone know what kind of government the rebels would create? The Triumvirate has no idea. To what extent will the new government embody an Islamic influence as opposed to the present secular government? What jihadi forces might they unleash? (And these forces do indeed exist in eastern Libya, where the rebels are concentrated.) Will they do away with much of the welfare state that Gaddafi used his oil money to create? Will the state-dominated economy be privatized? Who will wind up owning Libya’s oil? Will the new regime continue to invest Libyan oil revenues in sub-Saharan African development projects? Will they allow a US military base and NATO exercises? Will we find out before long that the “rebels” were instigated and armed by Holy Triumvirate intelligence services?
In the 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia was guilty of “crimes” similar to Gaddafi’s. His country was commonly referred to as “the last communists of Europe”. The Holy Triumvirate bombed him, arrested him, and let him die in prison. The Libyan government, it should be noted, refers to itself as the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. American foreign policy is never far removed from the Cold War.
We must look closely at the no-fly zone set up for Iraq by the US and the UK (falsely claimed by them as being authorized by the United Nations) beginning in the early 1990s and lasting more than a decade. It was in actuality a license for very frequent bombing and killing of Iraqi citizens; softening up the country for the coming invasion. The no-fly zone-cum invasion force in Libya is killing people every day with no end in sight, softening up the country for regime change. Who in the universe can stand up to The Holy Triumvirate? Has the entire history of the world ever seen such power and such arrogance?
And by the way, for the 10th time, Gaddafi did not carry out the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 in 1988.1 Please enlighten your favorite progressive writers on this.
Barack “I’d kill for a peace prize” Obama
Is anyone keeping count?
I am. Libya makes six.
Six countries that Barack H. Obama has waged war against in his 26 months in office. (To anyone who disputes that dropping bombs on a populated land is act of war, I would ask what they think of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.)
America’s first black president now invades Africa.
Is there anyone left who still thinks that Barack Obama is some kind of improvement over George W. Bush?
Probably two types still think so. 1) Those to whom color matters a lot; 2) Those who are very impressed by the ability to put together grammatically correct sentences.
It certainly can’t have much otherwise to do with intellect or intelligence. Obama has said numerous things, which if uttered by Bush would have inspired lots of rolled eyeballs, snickers, and chuckling reports in the columns and broadcasts of mainstream media. Like the one the president has repeated on a number of occasions when pressed to investigate Bush and Cheney for war crimes, along the lines of “I prefer to look forward rather than backwards”. Picture a defendant before a judge asking to be found innocent on such grounds. It simply makes laws, law enforcement, crime, justice, and facts irrelevant.
There’s also the excuse given by Obama to not prosecute those engaged in torture: because they were following orders. Has this “educated” man never heard of the Nuremberg Trials, where this defense was summarily rejected? Forever, it was assumed.
Just 18 days before the Gulf oil spill Obama said: “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.” (Washington Post, May 27, 2010) Picture George W. having said this, and the later reaction.
“All the forces that we’re seeing at work in Egypt are forces that naturally should be aligned with us, should be aligned with Israel,” Obama said in early March.2 Imagine if Bush had implied this — that the Arab protesters in Egypt against a man receiving billions in US aid including the means to repress and torture them, should “naturally” be aligned with the United States and — God help us — Israel.
A week later, on March 10, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told a forum in Cambridge, Mass. that Wikileaks hero Bradley Manning’s treatment by the Defense Department in a Marine prison was “ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid.” The next day our “brainy” president was asked about Crowley’s comment. Replied the Great Black Hope: “I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are.”
Right, George. I mean Barack. Bush should have asked Donald Rumsfeld whether anyone in US custody was being tortured anywhere in the world. He could then have held a news conference like Obama did to announce the happy news — “No torture by America!” We would still be chortling at that one.
Obama closed his remark with: “I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Pvt. Manning’s safety as well.” 3
Ah yes, of course, Manning is being tortured for his own good. Someone please remind me — Did Georgieboy ever stoop to using that particular absurdity to excuse prisoner hell at Guantanamo?
Is it that Barack Obama is not bothered by the insult to Bradley Manning’s human rights, the daily wearing away of this brave young man’s mental stability?
The answer to the question is No. The president is not bothered by these things.
How do I know? Because Barack Obama is not bothered by anything as long as he can exult in being the president of the United States, eat his hamburgers, and play his basketball. Let me repeat once again what I first wrote in May 2009:
The problem, I’m increasingly afraid, is that the man doesn’t really believe strongly in anything, certainly not in controversial areas. He learned a long time ago how to take positions that avoid controversy, how to express opinions without clearly taking sides, how to talk eloquently without actually saying anything, how to leave his listeners’ heads filled with stirring clichés, platitudes, and slogans. And it worked. Oh how it worked! What could happen now, having reached the presidency of the United States, to induce him to change his style?
Remember that in his own book, “The Audacity of Hope”, Obama wrote: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
Obama is a product of marketing. He is the prime example of the product “As seen on TV”.
Writer Sam Smith recently wrote that Obama is the most conservative Democratic president we’ve ever had. “In an earlier time, there would have been a name for him: Republican.”
Indeed, if John McCain had won the 2008 election, and then done everything that Obama has done in exactly the same way, liberals would be raging about such awful policies.
I believe that Barack Obama is one of the worst things that has ever happened to the American left. The millions of young people who jubilantly supported him in 2008, and numerous older supporters, will need a long recovery period before they’re ready to once again offer their idealism and their passion on the alter of political activism.
If you don’t like how things have turned out, next time find out exactly what your candidate means when he talks of “change”.
….
1. killinghope.org/bblum6/panam.htm ↩
2. March 4, 2011, Democratic Party function, Miami, FL, CQ Transcriptions
3. Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2011
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NATO Operations: Turkey To Control Benghazi Airport, Blockade Libya
Hurriyet Daily News
March 28, 2011
Turkey to assume control of Benghazi airport in Libya
-Turkey is now taking a critical role in NATO operations in Libya, pledging five vessels and one submarine to a NATO patrol mission to enforce a U.N. arms embargo against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.
Additionally, Turkey’s NATO base in the Aegean province of İzmir was selected as the center for operations monitoring the no-fly zone in Libya….
ANKARA: Turkey is assuming control of the Benghazi airport, and sending naval forces to patrol the corridor between the rebel-held city and Crete, as it prepares to join a London meeting on the international response to Libya.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Monday that Turkey would take control of the airport in order to coordinate humanitarian assistance to the crisis-hit North African country as part of the multinational task force now under NATO command.
“Turkey said ‘yes’ to three tasks within NATO: the takeover of Benghazi airport for the delivery of humanitarian aid, the task about control of the air corridor and the involvement of Turkish naval forces in the corridor between Benghazi and Crete,” Erdoğan told a news conference at Ankara’s Esenboğa airport before departing for neighboring Iraq.
NATO member states reached a consensus last week about leading Libya operations under the alliance’s command. The Turkish Parliament passed a motion Thursday authorizing the country’s military to participate in the international force in Libya and the government to make a “multi-dimensional contribution.”
….
Turkey will be represented in an international conference about Libya set to be held Tuesday in London. Erdoğan said Turkey’s insistence on ensuring broad-based participation in the summit was acknowledged. “Thus NATO will not be left alone in Libya,” he said.
….
The meeting is expected to establish a contact group of nations. Though it is not yet clear if Turkey will join this grouping, a Turkish diplomat said such mechanisms are sometimes useful – as in the case of Kosovo – and that Ankara would evaluate the situation if it were asked to participate.
Once-reluctant Turkey is now taking a critical role in NATO operations in Libya, pledging five vessels and one submarine to a NATO patrol mission to enforce a U.N. arms embargo against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.
Additionally, Turkey’s NATO base in the Aegean province of İzmir was selected as the center for operations monitoring the no-fly zone in Libya following the lifting of Turkey’s previous opposition to any kind of NATO involvement in the North African country.
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NATO Formally Takes Command Of Libyan War
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/28/c_13800624.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 28, 2011
NATO decides to take full command of Libya mission
-A NATO official said that ambassadors approved on Sunday the airstrike plans against Libyan ground forces…broadening the alliance’s previous role of enforcing the no-fly zone and arms embargo.
BRUSSELS: NATO’s top decision-making body decided on Sunday to implement all aspects of the UN resolution on Libya, thus paving the way for the alliance to take over full command of the military operations against Libya from the United States.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced following a special session of NATO ambassadors that “NATO allies have decided to take on the whole military operation in Libya under the United Nations Security Council resolution.”
….
“We will be acting in close coordination with our international and regional partners to protect the people of Libya,” Rasmussen said, adding NATO’s operations will be implemented “with immediate effect.”
“This is a very significant step, which proves NATO’s capability to take decisive action,” Rasmussen said.
A NATO official said that ambassadors approved on Sunday the airstrike plans against Libyan ground forces…broadening the alliance’s previous role of enforcing the no-fly zone and arms embargo.
The latest decision will pave the way for NATO to assume full command of Libya operations from the United States next week, as the latter has been eager to step back and in favor of NATO to take the reins.
….
Britain will host an international conference on Libya in London on Tuesday, which is expected to set “the wide political guidance” for the military operation as NATO takes the full military command.
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Air Strikes Expanded Throughout Libya As NATO Takes Command
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/28/c_13801909.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 28, 2011
Air strikes go on over Libya, NATO in command
TRIPOLI: Western-led coalition forces Sunday continued their air strikes on Libyan government forces after NATO decided to take full command of the Libya air campaign, as rebels reportedly retook control of a key oil exporting terminal.
Explosions were heard in the capital and both civilian and military targets were hit by the “colonialist aggressors,” Libya’s state TV reported.
Explosions occurred near the Gaser Ben Ghasher region, some 30 km south of the capital, and plumes of heavy smoke and flames were seen rising from the area. A road leading to the international airport and a neighborhood in Tripoli reportedly were among the areas hit by the coalition forces.
Libya’s state TV also said Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte city was also struck by the coalition forces Sunday night.
The city was under attack by Western warplanes Saturday night and many targets were destroyed.
French media reported that French fighter jets on Sunday launched attacks on Libyan armored vehicles and a military arsenal in the Misrata and Zintan regions.
So far, at least 114 Libyans have been killed and 445 others wounded since the air strikes began on March 19, according to Libyan health authorities.
Earlier on Sunday, Libyan rebels reportedly recaptured the major oil exporting terminal of Ras Lanuf and the town of Bin Jawad, 525 km east of Tripoli.
….
Ambassadors from 28 NATO member countries held a special meeting in Brussels on Sunday and decided to implement all aspects of the UN resolution on Libya, paving the way for NATO to take over full command of the military operation against Libya from the United States.
“NATO allies have decided to take on the whole military operation in Libya under the United Nations Security Council resolution,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced after the meeting.
….
“This is a very significant step, which proves NATO’s capability to take decisive action,” Rasmussen stressed.
The air raids against Libyan forces by NATO…have broadened the alliance’s previous role of enforcing the no-fly zone and arms embargo.
….
[Italian Foreign Minister Franco] Frattini stressed that Italy wanted all military interventions in Libya under one single command, and said the country was against the so-called “coalition of the willing” sponsored by France.
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All-Out Assault: British Missiles Destroy Libyan Depots, Bunkers
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
March 28, 2011
Britain says fighter planes destroy Gaddafi ammunition dumps
London: Ammunition dumps and bunkers used by the forces of Libya’s Moamer Gaddafi have been destroyed in airstrikes flown by Britain’s Royal Air Force, the Ministry of Defence in London said Monday.
A spokesman said the ammunition held in the bunkers in the Sabha desert in southern Libya were designated for use in attacks on the cities of Misurata and other targets in northern Libya.
Major General John Lorimer said the fighter aircraft used Storm Shadow missiles to destroy the dumps following armed reconnaissance sorties over Libya over the weekend.
‘Initial reports suggest that the bunkers have been destroyed and that the Libyan government has been denied ammunition…,’ said Lorimer.
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1,424 Missions: U.S. Still Main Force In Libyan Strikes – Pentagon
Agence France-Presse
March 28, 2011
US still main force in anti-Libya strikes: Pentagon
WASHINGTON: The United States has undertaken the lion’s share of coalition military sorties against Libya late Saturday and Sunday, despite NATO formally taking command of operations, Pentagon figures showed.
Of 167 sorties flown between 1930 GMT Saturday and 1500 GMT Sunday, more than half – some 97 – used US aircraft, the US Defense Department said.
That figure is only slightly less than the 62 percent of sorties flown by the US planes since Operation Odyssey Dawn got underway on March 19.
The latest Pentagon figures showed some 1,424 missions conducted during the operation so far as it imposes a United Nations Security Council-mandated no-fly zone over Libya.
The international coalition enforcing the no-fly zone, headed by the United States, Britain and France, has struck Kadhafi’s defense and air capabilities….
As rebels pushed towards Tripoli after nine days of Western bombings on Kadhafi forces, NATO ambassadors overcame objections from Turkey and France after days of tense talks and agreed to take control of the campaign.
….
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Western Jets Bomb Residential Areas In Southern Libya
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/28/48082397.html
Voice of Russia
March 28, 2011
Coalition jets strike Sabha in southern Libya.
Western coalition forces on Monday delivered an air strike upon the city of Sabha in southern Libya.
Libyan information agency JANA says residential areas were bombed, resulting in civilian casualties and destruction.
Planes of the coalition that includes the US, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Canada are bombing installations of the Libyan government forces in order to stop Muammar Gaddafi’s forces from delivering blows against the rebels.
….
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After Kosovo, Afghanistan: Dutch F-16s Fly Libyan Sorties
http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/dutch-f-16s-operational-over-libya
Radio Netherlands
March 28, 2011
Dutch F-16s operational over Libya
-“We are ready. The first mission has got to go well. Our group consists of experienced people who served in Afghanistan and Kosovo. They know what to do.”
Dutch newspapers AD and de Volkskrant report today that the four Dutch F-16s stationed on the Italian island of Sardinia will fly their first mission on Monday.
The four jet fighters are part of the mission…enforcing a UN no-fly zone over Libya.
The 150 Dutch military personnel and pilots now stationed at the Decimomannu airbase on Sardinia have spent the past few days settling in and making test flights. For the time being, the Dutch planes will not take part in any action against ground forces.
The commander of the Dutch mission, Johan van Deventer, says: “We are ready. The first mission has got to go well. Our group consists of experienced people who served in Afghanistan and Kosovo. They know what to do.”
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Istanbul Cooperation Initiative: “Soldier Of Fortune” NATO Hands Libyan Oil To Persian Gulf States
http://abc.az/eng/news/main/52557.html
Azerbaijan Business Center
Match 28, 2011
NATO conquered from Gaddafi control over Libyan oil for Qatar
Baku: NATO’s operation, worth about $300-500 million a day, on sweeping the sky over Libya opens a new historical era: the beginning of colonial conquests by the Persian Gulf states. At the same time NATO acts as a “soldier of fortune” – a professional mercenary, ensuring colonial conquest itself.
The defeat of Colonel Qaddafi’s ground forces by NATO aviation has opened possibilities for the opposition for restoration of oil exports from Libya. As a result, according to a representative on the economy and oil of the “transitional government” of the opposition, Ali Tarkhuni, the opposition has already reached an agreement on oil exports under the supervision of Qatar.
“We have agreed with Qatar, and our next shipment will be carried out in less than a week,” Tarkhuni said.
The opposition controls the production of 100,000-130,000 barrels of oil a day and is ready to raise production up to 300,000 bpd. This amounts to only a fifth of production in the country prior to anti-government protests (1.5 million bpd).
Nevertheless, for the first time in history control over the “opposition” export has been transferred not to traditional “monsters” like BP and RD Shell, but to “humble” Qatar, which is using the channel Al Jazeera, which has contributed a lot to the start of anti-government protests in the Arab world and Libya.
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http://en.rian.ru/world/20110328/163247336.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
March 28, 2011
Qatar becomes first Arab country to recognize Libyan National Council
Cairo: Qatar has officially recognized the Libyan National Council as the only legitimate governing body in the North African country, becoming the first Arab country to do so, the Qatar News Agency said on Monday.
“The council, which includes representatives of various Libyan regions, has already begun representing the whole of Libya and has been recognized by the Libyan people,” the news agency quoted a source in the Qatari Foreign Ministry as saying.
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are the only Arab countries officially involved in the international military operation against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi that has been under way since March 19.
The Libyan National Council, based in the main opposition stronghold of Benghazi, consists of 31 representatives of Libya’s largest cities. The council controls the eastern part of the country, while the west remains under control of the embattled Libyan leader.
France was the first country to recognize the Libyan National Council as the country’s only legitimate government. International organizations, such as the European Union, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council have expressed their readiness to cooperate with the council.
The military operation to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya is being conducted jointly by 13 states, including the United States, Britain and France, under a UN mandate. The Libyan state-run television has accused the allied forces of killing dozens of civilians while attacking civilian facilities in Libya along with military objects.
On Sunday, NATO began taking command of all aerial operations in Libya from the US-led force. The transfer of authority will take up to three days.
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NATO Warplanes Launch Fresh Assault On Libyan Capital
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/28/c_13800639.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 28, 2011
Western forces launch fresh airstrikes on Tripoli
TRIPOLI: The Western coalition launched fresh airstrikes Sunday evening on the Libyan capital city of Tripoli and its outskirts, and explosions were heard near Gaser Ben Ghasher region, some 30 km south of the capital, eyewitnesses said.
They said that after the explosions plumes of heavy smoke and flames were seen.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte city is witnessing airstrikes at the moment by the coalition forces, the Libyan TV quoted a military source as saying.
It is also said that the city was under attack by airstrikes last night, when a lot of targets were destroyed.
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US-Led Libyan Ground Assault Planned
March 27, 2011
US-Led Libyan Ground Assault Planned
by Stephen Lendman
In his weekly March 26 address, Obama said:
“As I pledged at the outset, the role of American forces has been limited. We are not putting any ground forces into Libya….And as agreed this week, responsibility for this operation is being transferred from the United States to our NATO allies and partners.”
Earlier he said:
“United States forces are conducting a limited and well-defined mission in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster.”
As an earlier article explained, American aggression caused a humanitarian crisis. Moreover, the alleged NATO handover is a ruse. NATO is code language for Washington, the Pentagon. It’s America’s tool, its “missile,” reigning death and destruction across Libya and other operational theaters. European allies concur. They’re more pawns than partners. Reports now suggest they’ll participate in a late April or early May ground operation if air attacks don’t oust Gaddafi.
On March 25, Russia’s RIA Novosti news service headlined, “Ground operation in Libya could start in April – Russian Intelligence,” saying:
According to an unnamed high-ranking Russian intelligence official, “(t)he international coalition force is planning a ground operation that could start in late April. Information coming via different channels shows that NATO countries, with active participation of Britain and the United States, are developing a plan….From all indications, (it’ll) be launched if the alliance fails to force Gaddafi….to capitulate.”
The official estimates a late April-early May timetable. UN Resolution 1973 prohibits an occupation force, but authorizes “all necessary measures,” including boots on the ground. Hawkish Western military analysts urge it, a March 25 Wall Street Journal report saying:
“The history of air-only military actions is that they rarely, if ever, defeat an adversary without” ground forces.
On March 26, Rick Rozoff’s Stop NATO web site mentioned reports of US forces in Libya with a planned ground invasion coming next month. Various March 26 sources were cited, including:
(1) Sofia News Agency reporting:
“US forces are rumored to be already present on the ground in Libya,” despite official denials. According to Reserve Colonel David Hand, American soldiers have been in Libya for 12 days. US intelligence Colonel Tony Scheffer confirmed it.
(2) Voice of Russia’s Alexander Vatutin said:
“We are witnessing an attempt to seize oil and gas reserves by means of force. Apparently, coalition forces are pursuing targets other than humanitarian operations….” Dozens of civilian deaths are reported.
“In the meantime, NATO has suggested the possibility of a ground operation in Libya unless Gaddafi chooses to surrender. The military are guided by the Second World War saying ‘Put on the Ground’ which means you can never expect to win unless you reach the enemy’s positions on the ground.” About 4,000 US marines are positioned in the Mediterranean to invade.
According to Russian Strategic Research Institute’s Azhdar Kurtov, “a ground operation is inevitable” whether or not Gaddafi stays or goes, to seize Libya’s strategic oil and gas reserves.
(3) AFP reported:
Washington and NATO partners may supply weapons to opposition forces. According to the Washington Post, “recently withdrawn US ambassador to Libya” Gene Cretz said “administration officials were having ‘the full gamut’ of discussions on ‘potential assistance we might offer,’ both on the non-lethal and the lethal side.”
(4) RIA Novosti said:
“Any foreign military ground operation in Libya will be considered as occupying the country, Russia’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said on Saturday,” in violation of Resolution 1973.
(5) Russia Today reported St. Petersburg State University Professor Guman Isayev saying:
Libya, like Iraq, is becoming a “black hole….As soon as it became clear that insurgents lost the battle,” Resolution 1973 was passed, providing wide latitude for intervention. As a result, “Libya may cease to exist, de facto, the way Iraq did. On the other hand, it’s unlikely that Gaddafi’s regime can be overthrown by air strikes alone. The hopes that insurgents (could oust him) are failing despite active external support.”
On Monday, March 28, Obama will address the nation on the Libyan conflict. Expect none of this to be mentioned, just the usual boilerplate propaganda about “humanitarian intervention,” when, in fact, Washington’s aims are always imperial.
As previous articles explained, a protracted, destructive conflict is likely, including mass casualties so America can solidify its grip on the entire Mediterranean Basin, exploiting its resources and people freely.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
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Pentagon Chief: “No Idea” How Long Libyan Campaign Will Last
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110327/163234646.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
March 27, 2011
Defense Secretary does not know how long no-fly zone might be in place in Libya
Washington: The U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he does not know how long the no-fly zone might be in place in Libya, CBS News TV-channel reported.
The UN Security Council imposed the no-fly zone over Libya on March 17, along with ordering “all necessary measures”….
“I don’t think anybody has any idea,” Gates said.
….
The military operation in Libya, codenamed Odyssey Dawn, has been conducted so far jointly by 13 states, including the United States, Britain and France.
….
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“Odyssey” Nor Bringing “Dawn” To Libya
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/28/c_13800622.htm
Xinhua News Agency
March 28, 2011
“Odyssey” apparently not bringing “dawn” to Libya
BEIJING: The ongoing West-led “Odyssey Dawn” military operation against Libya, which was launched on March 19, apparently is adding fuel to the fire of the Libyan crisis instead of bringing the light of “dawn” to the North African country.
The operation, dominated by Western powers including France, Britain, the United States and Italy, has caused huge civilian casualties, building and infrastructure damage and hundreds of thousands of refugees. It has escalated the Libyan conflict, which started in mid-February.
It apparently has overstepped the authorization of the UN resolution on Libya adopted on March 17, raised questions and triggered disturbance in the region and around the world at large.
The resolution imposed a no-fly zone over Libya, but the West-led air strikes went far beyond the limit as they vehemently hit the Libyan army’s tanks, artillery and rocket projectiles.
As early as last Sunday, Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa said, “What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone.”
Meanwhile, the operation was initiated under the pretext of “humanitarian” assistance and protecting Libyan civilians, but the results, ironically, turned out to be more civilian deaths and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis.
Libyan authorities said over 100 civilians had been killed by the air strikes, and the UN Refugee Agency said over 350,000 Libyan refugees had fled the country up to Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin flatly questioned the operation: “What do we see today? Strikes are being carried out across the entire territory of the country. How can you, with the aim of protecting the peaceful population, choose means that lead to an increase of deaths among the civilian population?”
The operation may prolong volatility and insurgency in Libya, which might spill over to neighboring countries.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Eastern Africa recently said, “Our fear is that what is happening now in Libya may motivate terrorist groups in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq to regroup on African soil.”
In Homer’s glorious ancient Greek epic poem “The Odyssey,” the Greek hero Odysseus, after the fall of the Troy city, finally managed to return home and accomplished his long-cherished dream after a 10-year arduous trek.
However, the West-led Odyssey Dawn operation is complicating and worsening the situation in Libya and bringing about more sufferings to the Libyan people. The real “dawn” for the Libyan people, alleged as the operation’s aim, apparently is still far, far away.
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Libya: NATO Terrorizing, Killing Civilians
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFLDE72Q0O920110327
Reuters
March 27, 2011
Libya says NATO “terrorising” its civilians
TRIPOLI: Libya accused NATO on Sunday of “terrorising” and killing its people as part of a global plot to humiliate and weaken the North African country.
The government says Western-led air attacks have killed more than 100 civilians….
“The terror people live in, the fear, the tension is everywhere. And these are civilians who are being terrorised every day,” said Mussa Ibrahim, a Libyan government spokesman.
“We believe the unnecessary continuation of the air strikes is a plan to put the Libyan government in a weak negotiating position. NATO is prepared to kill people, destroy army training camps and army checkpoints and other locations.”
Earlier on Sunday, NATO officials said the alliance had agreed to take command of military operations in Libya.
Ibrahim acknowledged that rebel forces in the east were advancing westwards but declined to give any details on the retreat of government troops.
“The rebels are making their advances,” he said.
“(Western nations) are starving the Libyan population, (they want) to put Libya on its knees, to beg for mercy.
“It’s a very simple plan. We can see it happening in front of our eyes. They are not trying to protect civilians.”
Ibrahim said three Libyan civilian sailors were killed in a coalition air strike on a fishing harbour in the city of Sirte on Saturday.
(Writing by Maria Golovnina)
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Open Letter From Russian Doctors In Libya To The President Of The Russian Federation
Open letter from Russian doctors in Libya to the President of the Russian Federation
OPEN LETTER
President of the Russian Federation Medvedev DA
Prime Minister of Russian Federation VV Putin
from citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, working and living in Libya
March 24, 2011, Tripoli, Libya
Dear Mr. Medvedev and Vladimir Putin,
You said that citizens of the former Soviet Union were destined to become today citizens of different Slavic CIS countries – Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Despite this, we all believe that it is Russia as successor to the USSR, which is our SOLE safeguard for the interests of our countries and the security of our citizens. Therefore, we appeal to you for help and justice.
Today, there is blatant external aggression of USA and NATO against a sovereign country – Libya. And if anyone can doubt this, then we say this obvious fact is well known, because all this is happening before our eyes, and the actions of U.S. and NATO threaten the lives of not only the citizens of Libya, but to us who are on its territory. We are outraged by the barbaric bombing of Libya, which is currently carried out by a coalition of U.S. and NATO.
The bombing of Tripoli and other cities in Libya is aimed not only at the objects of air defense and Libya’s Air Force and not only against the Libyan army, but also the object of military and civilian infrastructure. Today, 24 March 2011, NATO aircraft and the U.S. all night and all morning bombed a suburb of Tripoli – Tajhura (where, in particular, is Libya’s Nuclear Research Center). Air Defense and Air Force facilities in Tajhura were destroyed back in the first 2 days of strikes and more active military facilities in the city remained, but today the object of bombing are barracks of the Libyan army, around which are densely populated residential areas, and next to it – the largest in Libya’s Heart Centers. Civilians and the doctors could not assume that common residential quarters will be about to become destroyed, so none of the residents or hospital patients was evacuated.
Bombs and rockets struck residential houses and fell near the hospital. The glass of the Cardiac Center building was broken, and in the building of the maternity ward for pregnant women with heart disease a wall collapsed and part of the roof. This resulted in ten miscarriages whereby babies died, the women are in intensive care, doctors are fighting for their lives. Our colleagues and we are working seven days a week, to save people. This is a direct consequence of falling bombs and missiles in residential buildings resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, which are operated and reviewed now by our doctors. Such a large number of wounded and killed, as during today, did not result during the total of all the riots in Libya. And this is called “protecting the civilian population”?
With full responsibility as witnesses and participants of what is happening, we state that the United States and its allies are thus carrying out genocide against the Libyan people – as was the case in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Crimes against humanity, carried out by coalition forces akin to those crimes committed by the fathers and grandfathers of today’s Western leaders and their henchmen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and in Dresden in Germany, where civilians were also being destroyed in order to deter, to break the will of the people to resist (Germany remembers it, and therefore refused to participate in this new slaughterhouse). Today they want in such ways to make the Libyan people surrender their leader and the legitimate government and meekly lay down their national oil wealth for the countries of the coalition.
We understand that applying to the “international community” to save the people of Libya and we were living in Libya, is useless. Our only hope – is Russia that has the right of veto in the UN, and specifically its leaders – the President and the Prime Minister.
We still hope for you, as hoped in the past, when we took the decision to stay in Libya, and to help its people, medical duty playing its role in the first place. After an abortive coup attempt in late February, the situation calmed down in Libya and the government had successfully restored order. To everyone in Libya, it was clear that without American intervention the country would soon return to normal life. Convinced that Russia, which has veto power, would not allow the aggression of the United States and its allies, we decided to stay in Libya, but were mistaken: Russia, unfortunately, believed the false assurances of Americans and did not oppose the criminal decision of France and the U.S.
We are Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians, the people of various professions (mainly doctors), working in Libya for more than a year (from 2 to 20 years). During this time, we became well acquainted with the life of the Libyan people and state with few citizens of other nations living in this social comfort, as the Libyans. They are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 U.S. dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious. Today, the people are suffering. In February, the peaceful life of the people was violated by gangs of criminals and insane drugged youth – whom the Western media for some reason called “peaceful demonstrators”. They used weapons and attacked police stations, government agencies, military units – resulting in bloodshed. Those who direct them, pursue a clear objective – to create chaos and establish control over Libya’s oil. They misinformed the international community, and said that the Libyans are struggling against the regime. Tell us, who would not like such a regime? If such a regime were in Ukraine or Russia, we would not have been here and worked and enjoyed the social comfort at home in our own countries and in every possible way such a regime would be maintained.
If the U.S. and the EU today have nothing to do, let them turn their attention to the plight of Japan, the Israeli bombing of Palestine, the audacity and impunity of Somali pirates, or the plight of Arab immigrants in France, and leave the Libyans themselves to sort out their internal problems. We see that today in Libya they want to do another Iraq. Carrying out the genocide of an entire people and those who are found with him. We perform MEDICAL DEBT and cannot leave Libyans alone in trouble, leaving them to be destroyed by the forces of the coalition, in addition, we understand that when all the foreigners leave and no one will tell the truth (the small staff of diplomatic missions have long been silenced), the Americans will arrange here a bloodbath. Our only chance of survival – is a solid civil position of Russia in the UN Security Council.
We hope that you, Mr. President, and you, Mr. Prime Minister, as citizens of Russia and as decent people will not allow American and European fascists of the 21st century to destroy the freedom-loving people of Libya and of those who today turned out to be with them.
We therefore urgently request that Russia uses its right of veto, the right earned by millions of lives of the Soviet people during World War II to stop the aggression against a sovereign state, to seek immediate cessation of U.S. and NATO bombing campaign and to demand the introduction of African Union troops in the conflict zone Libya.
Note: The African Union Peace & Security Council delegates that had been accepted by both the Libyan government and the rebel leaders to mediate a peaceful solution between the various parties, were refused entry into Libya by the UN Security Council. This act should have been reprimanded by Russia and China, who should study the AU resolutions, mandate and support its wise decisions]
HANDS OFF LIBYA!
With Respect and Hope
Your Wisdom and Honesty,
Citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia,
located in Libya
Bordovsky S., Vasilenko, S., Vegerkina A., Henry IV, Henry H., L. Grigorenko, DraBragg, A., Drobot V. Drobot, N., Yemets E., Kolesnikova, T., Kuzin, I., Kuzmenko, B., Kulebyakin V. Kulmenko T., Nikolaev AG, Papelyuk V. Selizar V. Selizar About . Smirnov, O. Smirnova, R., Soloviev DA, Stadnik VA, Stolpakova T. Streschalin G. Stakhovich Yu, Sukacheva L. Sukachev V. Tarakanov, T., Tikhon N. Tikhonov VI, Tkachev AV, Hadareva E., Tchaikovsky, O., Chukhno D. Chukhno O. Yakovenko D. et al
The collection of signatures under the Appeal to the heads of Russia and under the request of an international tribunal in The Hague for crimes of U.S. and NATO in Libya.
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Libya Conflict Highlights NATO’s Imperialist Mission
From:
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
http://www.truth-out.org/libya-conflict-highlights-natos-imperialist-mission68753
Libya Conflict Highlights NATO’s Imperialist Mission
By Joseph Gerson
Having launched its Libyan regime change war to oust the Qaddafi dictatorship from the United States’ German-based Africa Command, the Obama administration this week arranged to continue its air war under cover of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance.
Long understood to be a relatively benign and defensive alliance focused on European security needs, people across Europe and, increasingly, in the United States, are questioning how and why NATO is now focused on waging non-defensive wars beyond Europe.
From the beginning, 1948, NATO was about more than containing the Soviet Union, which in the immediate aftermath of World War II was a devastated nation whose occupation of Eastern Europe was as, George Kennan wrote, primarily designed to ensure a buffer against future invasions from the West. Think in terms of the devastation wrought by Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler.
Like the unequal treaties that defined 19th- and early 21st-century European colonialism in Asia, NATO has served as a fig leaf, providing a degree of legitimacy for the continuing US military occupation and related US political influence across Western Eurasia.
Recall that Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser, wrote that US global dominance requires US hegemony of Eurasia, which in turn necessitates that the United States maintain toeholds (or more) on its western, southern, and eastern peripheries.
Twenty-first century NATO isn’t the cold war alliance that many of us grew up with. The collapse of the Soviet Union eliminated NATO’s cold war raison d’etre, thereby undermining the rationales for the foreign deployment of hundreds of thousands of US warriors on hundreds of US and “NATO” bases across Europe. The Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations responded by transforming NATO into a global alliance to reinforce US imperial ambitions and the privileges of sectors of the European elite.
Violating President George H.W. Bush’s pledge not to expand NATO a centimeter nearer to Moscow, in exchange for Gorbachev’s blessing of German reunification on Western terms Clinton began the process of expanding NATO to Russia’s borders, along the way creating the foundation for Donald Rumsfeld and company to renew the game of divide and conquer by playing “New Europe” against “Old Europe.”
The US now has bases across Eastern Europe, and there will be more to come with “missile defense” deployments.
In violation of the UN Charter, the Clinton administration used NATO to fight its war against Serbia, making possible the creation of Kosovo and the rise of its corrupt client political leadership there.
As the cold war wound down, NATO adopted doctrines permitting “out of area operations,” i.e. military interventions in Africa, the Middle East and beyond. With NATO’s role in the Afghan war, “out of area operations” became the alliance’s primary mission.
Today, with 22 additional partnerships still more being planned for Japan, Korea and Southeast Asian nations, NATO is also being used to ensure access to the mineral resources of the Global South and to reinforce the encirclement of China, as well as Russia.
Thus, we can identify a major reason that NATO is today fighting in support of a ragtag collection of Libyan rebels in that oil-rich nation.
And, as a recent edition of Foreign Affairs put it, China’s rise does not inevitably mean it will become the world’s dominant nation.
If NATO can be merged with the European Union, the West, it argued, will remain dominant through the 21st century.
During its recent summits in Strasbourg – enforced by massive and brutal police state repression against nonviolent protesters – and Lisbon, and under pressure from the United States, NATO has resolved to remain at war in Afghanistan at least until 2014.
It has adopted a new “strategic concept” consolidating and pointing toward the expansion of the global alliance that can serve as a military enforcer for the United Nations or act in violation of the UN Charter.
And NATO has been reaffirmed as a nuclear alliance, while its members have been urged to further increase their military spending.
The 2012 summit to be held in the United States, likely in or near Washington, DC, will be used to plan and build support for the continuing Central Asian and Long wars, to continue the “containment” and encirclement of China and Russia, to bolster the Pentagon and its obscene budget and to reinforce President Obama’s re-election campaign.
Western European peace activists and progressives have long opposed NATO. This opposition grew with the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and it is worth noting that there is anything but unity about NATO’s Libyan war in elite European circles.
Even Germany has turned its back on the war, leaving the goal of a united European foreign policy a short-lived dream, while Norway has reversed course, no longer contributing its air force to the war.
At the popular level, growing out of the 2008 International Conference on Afghanistan held in Hanover, Germany, a “No to NATO/No to War” network of leading European and US peace organizations has come into being.
It organized counter-summit conferences and protests in both Strasbourg and Lisbon. Its members are rallying to oppose NATO’s Libya war and are planning a major demonstration in Bonn this November, when the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Karzai government there will be celebrated.
And, with the next NATO summit to be held in the US in 2012, plans on both sides of the Atlantic pond are gearing up to oppose NATO’s wars, related military spending that is robbing our communities of essential social services and the alliance itself.
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Syria Being Prepared For Libya Scenario
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/27/48051654.html
Voice of Russia
March 27, 2011
Syria on the brink
Yevgeny Kryshkin
The Syrian port city of Latakia is under patrol by troops after rioting crowds ransacked shops, overturned cars and torched local offices of the governing Al Baath party.
In Deraa further south, where Syria’s latest unrest first erupted on Wednesday, rioters have toppled an outdoor statue of late President Hafez Assad, father of the beleaguered incumbent Bashar Assad.
The Syrian government speaks of outside attempts to wreck age-old ethnic and confessional harmony in Syria.
For an assessment of the situation, we turned to Dr Vladimir Akhmedov of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences:
“Latakia and Deraa are far from a catastrophe at this stage, but probably mark an important turning point for the Syrians. As soon as the powers that be are no longer able to instill awe, they are likely to be faced with a violent uprising along the lines of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.”
The Syrian leadership appears to be rolling out a response to the challenge. In Damascus Saturday, President Bashar Assad convened an executive meeting of his Al Baath party to discuss initiatives for political pluralism, freedom of expression, changes to the judiciary and an end to an almost 50-year-old state of emergency in Syria. Reshuffles in the Cabinet are in the offing, as are further releases of political detainees. Two hundred and sixty have already walked free under a government amnesty.
Overall, observers believe Bashar Assad is not without support in his Middle East country and can cope.
