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L'Autre Monde 4 avril 2011: Partie 1 - Actualité, économie et d'étonnantes révélations à propos de la Libye
Pour écouter, ou pour télécharger, simplement cliquer sur le lien ici:
L'Autre Monde 4 avril 2011
120 min / Radio de l'UQAM, CHOQ FM
 | Diffusion en direct : Lundi à 15:00h
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Au programme cette semaine, 4 avril 2011:
Japon et la situation des centrales nucléaires hors de contrôle, actualité mondiale, économie et Moyen-Orient.
C'est en rendez-vous le lundi dès 15h pour l'émission la plus écoutée de CHOQ FM, la radio officielle de l'Université du Québec à Montréal !
***Hyperliens vers les sources des informations discutées sur l'émission d'aujourd'hui:
C'est le printemps et c'est le temps de faire le grand ménage. N'attendons pas une catastrophe comme au Japon. On n'a pas besoin de ça au Québec. Dehors le nucléaire et méfions-nous des pseudos-experts qui disent toujours que c'est sécuritaire au nom de leur profit.
Bonjour
Nouvelle pétition pour l'Assemblée Nationale
S.V.P. faites-la aussi circuler dans vos réseaux
Merci
Pétition :
SVP...Fermer Centrale nucléaire Gentilly-2
Texte de la pétition à l'Assemblée Nationale du Québec
Considérant que la centrale nucléaire Gentilly-2 arrive à la fin de sa vie utile et qu’Hydro-Québec a décidé de procéder à la réfection complète de cette centrale à des coûts avoisinant les 2 milliards de dollars;
Considérant que l’exploitation de l’énergie nucléaire constitue un danger permanent pour la santé humaine et l’environnement comme nous le rappelle la récente catastrophe de Fukushima au Japon;
Considérant enfin que le Québec se trouve actuellement en surplus de production d'électricité et que les besoins énergétiques du futur pourraient être comblés autrement que par le nucléaire;
Nous, Québécoises et Québécois, demandons au gouvernement du Québec qu’il renonce au projet de réfection de Gentilly-2 et qu’il procède immédiatement à la fermeture définitive et à l’élimination des déchets radioactifs de cette centrale nucléaire.
Date limite pour signer 30 juin 2011
Nombre de signataires 714
http://sn117w.snt117.mail.live.com/default.aspx
Actualité:
FOX News Has Lost 21% Of Its Audience This Year
http://www.businessinsider.com/glenn-beck-ratings-fox-q1-2011-3
Fox News has the top 12 most-watched shows so far this year.
Which is perhaps not totally surprising since this marks the network's ninth straight year as the number one channel in cable.
That is not to say it's all rainbows and unicorns. (Or cupcakes and caliphates.) All of Fox's top shows posted double digit losses year over year.
Glenn Beck suffered the biggest drop, losing 30% of his audience compared to the first quarter last year. But he wasn't alone. Top ranking O'Reilly lost 14% of his audience, Sean Hannity, up a spot from 2010, lost 19%, and Bret Baier, who pushed Beck out of the top three, lost 13%.
China soon to overtake US as world's scientific superpower
China is set to overtake the US as the world's scientific 'superpower' as early as 2013, a major study from the UK's Royal Society has concluded.
China, Brazil and India, are now rivaling the traditional scientific leaders - the US, Western Europe and Japan. And some surprising outsiders are edging up the rankings, including Iran, Tunisia and Turkey.
Sixth study in recent months links mercury in flu shots to brain damage, autism
Natural News
The toxic effects of the mercury, also known in vaccines as Thimerosal, have once again been confirmed, this time by researchers from the University of Brazil. Marking the sixth major study in recent months to condemn the use of mercury in medicine, the new study reveals that mercury causes serious brain damage, and is linked to autism and other developmental diseases in children and Alzheimer's disease in adults...
True toll of Deepwater disaster may be 50 times worse than thought
The recorded impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on wildlife may have severely underestimated the number of deaths of whales and dolphins, according to a new report.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010 devastated the Gulf region ecologically and economically. However, a new study published in Conservation Letters reveals that the true impact of the disaster on wildlife may be gravely underestimated. The study argues that fatality figures based on the number of recovered animal carcasses will not give a true death toll, which may be 50 times higher than believed.
Webmaster's Commentary:
See Obama administration restricts findings on Gulf’s dead dolphins
Obama administration restricts findings on Gulf’s dead dolphins
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/305096#ixzz1HsjsqUUn
Biloxi - The Obama administration has issued a gag order on data over the recent spike of dead dolphins, including many stillborn infants, washing up on Mississippi and Alabama shorelines, and scientists say the restriction undermines the scientific process.
An abnormal dolphin mortality this year along the Gulf coast has become part of a federal criminal investigation over last year’s BP oil spill disaster and as a result, has led the US government to clamp down on biologists’ findings, with orders to keep the results confidential.
The dolphin die-off, labeled an “unusual mortality event (UME),” resulted in wildlife biologists being contracted by the National Marine Fisheries Service to record the recent spike in dolphin deaths by collecting tissue samples and specimens for the agency, but late last month were privately ordered to keep their results under wraps.
Reuters has obtained a copy of the agency letter that states, in part: “Because of the seriousness of the legal case, no data or findings may be released, presented or discussed outside the UME investigative team without prior approval.”
One biologist involved with tracking dolphin mortalities for over 20 years and speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that: “It throws accountability right out the window.
Almost 200 dead bottlenose dolphin bodies have been found since mid-January through this week along shorelines of Gulf coast states, including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Reuters notes. About half of the carcasses are newborns or stillborn infants.
That number is around 14 times the average numbers recorded during the same time frame between 2002 and 2007 and has coincidentally occurred during the first calving season since the BP Deepwater Horizon debacle last year in the Gulf.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Imagine my (complete absence of) surprise at this.
I guess the campaign contributions from BP for Obama's next election campaign trump the absolute ecological disaster BP created with this oil spill.
After all, what do dead dolphins or dead Americans mean to this President? The short answer is, they are simply expendable.
BP Managers May Be Charged With Manslaughter In Deaths Of Oil Rig Workers In Gulf Oil Spill
Transocean hails ‘best year’ in safety, gives execs bonuses, despite Gulf spill
The company that owns the now-infamous Deepwater Horizon, the oil rig that caused immeasurable damage to the Gulf, recently applauded itself for the "best year in safety performance in our Company's history." The company, Transocean Ltd., rewarded its executives millions in bonuses for the achievement, according to the annual report it released yesterday.
Steven L. Newman, Transocean's president and CEO, awarded himself $4.3 million in cash bonuses, stocks and options.
Eleven people died as a direct result of the disaster in the Gulf, nine of them Transocean employees, according to Forbes.
Webmaster's Commentary:
WTF ???????
Gag order on scientists probing dolphin deaths
Scientists probing the deaths of baby dolphins in the area affected by last year's BP oil spill have been ordered by the government not to speak about the project.
Obama Receives Transparency Award at Secret Meeting
On Monday President Obama received an award for transparency, which ironically was given to him during a closed, unannounced meeting. Bestowed upon the President from a group of transparency advocates, the ceremony took place in secret, even though — as of two weeks ago — it was supposed to be open to the press.
According to Politico, the meeting was “inexplicably postponed” and rescheduled without notice for Monday “without disclosing the meeting on [the President's] public schedule or letting photographers or print reporters into the room.”
Webmaster's Commentary:
From....the Department of "You Can't Make This stuff Up", obviously!
Letters Claim Al-CIAda Have Nuclear Bombs Hidden Across United States, Al Qaeda 100% Pentagon Run
25 letters that claim nuclear bombs are hidden throughout the United States have been sent to multiple investigators and citizens in the Chicago area.
The letter inside said, “The Al-Qaeda organization has planted 160 nuclear bombs throughout the U.S. in schools, stadiums, churches, stores, financial institutions and government buildings.” It also said, “This is a suicide mission for us,” reported CBS Chicago.
While this news may be startling to many, it is no surprise to those in the alternative media. The idea of nukes in the United States has run rampant for years, with many believing rogue elements of our government will actually use these nukes within the United States to create enough chaos to initiate a world government.
In 2002 the right wing news organization World Net Daily reported that Bin Laden had snuck over 20 suitcase nukes into the United States:
"CIA Spy" Davis Was Giving Nuclear Bomb Material to Al-Qaeda, says Report
Double murder-accused US official Raymond Davis has been found in possession of top-secret CIA documents, which point to him or the feared American Task Force 373 (TF373) operating in the region, providing Al-Qaeda terrorists with "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents," according to a report.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Something to keep in mind as we see reports of "Terrorists" (nudge nudge wink wink) claiming to have nuclear weapons inside the United States.
Airport body scanners not a health risk: study
Full-body scanners used to secure airports, about 1,000 of which will be deployed across the United States by year's end, do not pose health risks, a study released has found.
The University of California study appearing in the "Archives of Internal Medicine" found that a traveler would have to go through a body scanner 50 times to receive the same amount of radiation as from a dental X-ray.
Webmaster's Commentary:
One has to wonder:
1. Who actually funded this study? This is nowhere to be found in the original article, located here:
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/archinternmed.2011.105
But the article also states (about 2/3 of the way down)
"Discomfort with the backscatter scanners exists in part because of health and privacy concerns and in part because the TSA does not permit independent assessment of the machines, raising concerns that if the machines do not function as provided, or if the settings are changed by employees after the machines are installed, or if they undergo software or mechanical errors or malfunctions, unknown effects could result.16 The TSA asserts that the machines have been adequately tested by various organizations (footnotes7, 9, 17 )but, as pointed out by J. Sedat, PhD, 1 of 4 professors at the University of California, San Francisco, who wrote John P. Holdren, advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology, more independent testing is necessary, and he noted that "it is premature to put a whole population through this with out more due diligence and independent testing."16 It would seem prudent for the TSA to permit additional testing to verify the safety of the devices."
So, the TSA says these machines are safe, but doesn't allow any independent assessment?!?
Obama's own advisor has told him that "it is premature to put a whole population through this with out more due diligence and independent testing." , and yet the machines are still in use?!?!?
One also has to wonder if Holdren happened to read the following article, published on 30 October 2009, in "Technology Review", published by MIT, which can be found here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24331/
"How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA"
Here's the core of the article, and one which everyone who flies, with which one needs to be concerned.
"The evidence that terahertz radiation damages biological systems is mixed. "Some studies reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, showed none," say Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a few buddies. Now these guys think they know why.
Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they've found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That's a jaw dropping conclusion. "
The University of California study appears to have been engineered to never look at this issue.
IDF prepares for multi-front war in war games
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=214723
Military holds drill aimed at preparing forces for all-out war against Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas; exercise did not include soldiers, live-fire.
Talkbacks (5)
In the face of a changing Middle East, the IDF held a set of war games this week aimed at preparing the military for all-out war against Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas.
The exercise did not include soldiers or live-fire exercises, but was held to drill commanders and their decisions in the event of a large-scale war on multiple fronts.
Olmert says Gaza war inevitable
Olmert says Gaza war inevitable
Thu Mar 31, 2011
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that an all-out war against the Gaza Strip is inevitable.
"If there's one thing I regret -- it's that we didn't finish the job back then -- we cannot avoid the need to complete the job," Olmert said on Wednesday, referring to the Gaza war while he was in office.
Israel admits kidnapping Palestinian
Viktoria Kushnir, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, said Abu Sisi was kidnapped on February 19 after boarding a train in the eastern city of Kharkiv bound for the capital Kiev. She added that Abu Sisi was in Ukraine applying for citizenship.
Veronika Abu Sisi, wife of kidnapped Palestinian, says that according to a train conductor's statement, two hours after the train's departure, two unidentified individuals came inside the train carriage and took Sisi away at Poltava station.
Abu Sisi was a manager at the Gaza Strip's main power plant. Some reports have linked Abu Sisi's abduction to Israel's intent to sabotage the work of the only power generation unit in Gaza.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Note that Israel insists this is a legal arrest, i.e. that Israel has the unquestioned right to go into other countries and kidnap anyone it wants. Of course, the goyim have to go through that pesky extradition process, but not Israel! Israel is above such laws. God said so. And you're a filthy anti-Semite if you disagree.
'Abducted' Palestinian engineer appears in Israel court
A Palestinian engineer has appeared in an Israeli court after being captured in Ukraine and jailed in Israel.
No charges were laid, but the court extended Dirar Abu Sisi's detention.
Israeli map shows 950 alleged Hezbollah sites
Webmaster's Commentary:
"And you're a filthy anti-Semite if you don't take our word for it!"
(ahem)
Clearly, Israel is about to make another try for the Litani river and this is the flood of bullshit propaganda to justify the invasion and conquest.
Israel holds secret talks with Russia in bid to thwart recognition of Palestinian state
France, Germany and the U.K. are pushing for announcing a new international peace initiative which may include setting up two states on the basis of the 1967 borders.
Webmaster's Commentary:
"No, no, no, no, NO! WE have a right to exist. They don't! They never did. They are not even people. They are cattle. God wants Israel to have all the land, and you are all filthy anti-Semites if you don't give it to us! WAAAAAAH!"
Israel West Bank Annexations Considered
Israel is considering annexing major West Bank settlement blocs if the Palestinians unilaterally seek world recognition of a state, an Israeli official said Tuesday – moves that would deal a grave blow to prospects for negotiating a peace deal between the two sides.
Israel has refrained from taking such a diplomatically explosive step for four decades. The fact that it is considering doing so reflects how seriously it is concerned by the Palestinian campaign to win international recognition of a state in the absence of peacemaking.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Apparently, with all the tumult going on in Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and the nuclear fallout from Fukujima,it is apparent that the Israeli government, at the moment they think no one is paying attention,is willing to risk a 3rd intifada and possible expulsion from any and every international body with which Israel is aligned to accomplish this annexation.
And I would like to remind Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel, itself, became a nation by unilateral declaration.
I would also like to remind Prime Minister Netanyahu that there is a real danger of unintended consequences to such an act; however, with hubris being the trademark of domestic and international Israeli politics, the danger of such a move to the very survival of the nation of Israel may well not have been factored into the equation which led to such a threat.
UN chief: Israel's occupation is 'morally, politically unsustainable'
Ban Ki-moon pushes Israel and the Palestinian Authority toward a "two-state solution"
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel Wednesday to halt settlement building in the West Bank and put a stop to all forms of violence and incitement, the UN News Center reported.
Speaking in Uruguay at the UN Latin American and Caribbean Meeting in support of Middle East peace Ban said it was a "crucial time" for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“Time is of the essence in realizing the two-State solution, " Ban said, "the occupation that started in 1967 is morally and politically unsustainable, and must end. The Palestinians have a legitimate right to the establishment of an independent and viable State of their own."
Économie:
Federal Reserve silently grows balance sheet to approximately $2.75 trillion by a shadow bailout of residential real estate and commercial real estate. The continuing hidden CRE bailout imperils future economic growth.
The biggest silent financial bailout going on in the nation revolves around commercial real estate. Commercial real estate (CRE) values have plummeted $3 trillion from their peak in 2008. While residential real estate values peaked in 2006 CRE waited two more years before moving lower.
Webmaster's Commentary:
The Federal Reserve is once again saving the banks by printing up gobs of worthless paper notes and handing them to the Wall Street crooks. Of course this flood of worthless cash inflates the economy, drives the value of the dollars you already own and saved downward, which results in prices going up. So, in short, evil wizard and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Voldemort waves his magic printing press and real wealth magically vanishes from your pockets and appears in the pockets of the bankers who created this mess in the first place with their mortgage-backed securities fraud.
Goldman Sachs chief's pay hits $14.1m
Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group, saw his 2010 compensation rise to $14.1m (€9.9m) from just over $1m (€700,000) in 2009, according to an analysis of data filed with regulators.
Mr Blankfein received a salary of $600,000 (€421,000), a cash bonus of $5.4m (€3.8m) and stock awards of $7.65m (€5.4m) for the year. He also received perks worth €328,000, including €131,000 for the use of a car, €44,000 for medical and dental coverage and the rest for life insurance, tax planning and retirement contributions.
In addition, he was granted restricted stock valued at $12.6m (€8.8m), up from $9m (€6.3m) in 2009, which is not counted in the total annual package because the grants are paid out over a period of three years.
ING Banker Bonuses Axed By People Power: 100% Bonus Clawback Tax Passed Retroactive To 2008
After a furious row over pay packages at Amsterdam-based ING in which thousands of customers threatened to make mass withdrawals, the Netherlands is now vying for the title of Europe's most bonus-hating country.
Great story.
Housing market: 13% of all U.S. homes are vacant
High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.
And it's only getting worse: The national vacancy rate crept up to just over 13% according to last week's decennial census report. That's up from 12.1% in 2007.
"More vacant homes equal more downward pressure on home prices," said Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a real estate information provider.
Michigan GOP Looking To Revoke All Teachers’ Licenses If They Strike
Michigan Republicans came in a little late to Wisconsin’s union-arson party, but they’re uncovering innovative new ways to wage war on their state’s working population. Today’s weapon: a plan to revoke the teaching license of the state’s educators if their unions go on strike at any time.
Webmaster's Commentary:
"You WILL live on less money so we can save the Wall Street bankers from prison, schweinhund!" -- Greedy Old Party
Euro economists expect Greek default, BBC survey finds
Greece is likely to default on its sovereign debt, according to the majority of respondents to a BBC World Service survey of European economists.
Webmaster's Commentary:
A private central bank, issuing the public currency at interest, without exception, is a pyramid scheme. The scheme works because each new and larger generation of people are encouraged to borrow, which allows creation of new money which circulates through the economy to pay the interest on the old money. As long as there are always ever-larger pools of borrowers, the system will "kite" along, yet debt always exceeds available capital in such a system.
When the bankers can find no new borrowers, the system collapses, as it is collapsing now. From the bankers point of view, this is not a problem. They are already wealthy from this fraud for no more than the cost of the ink and paper used to print their notes, which are not backed up by anything of value. And as the economy collapses, they use more of their worthless notes to buy up what remains of real wealth among the people through foreclosure sales, and gold-buying vulture operations.
But the system perpetuates only as long as the people can be brainwashed into thinking this is the way life is supposed to be, just as previous enslaved populations were taught that divine right, or serfdom, or indentured servitude, was the way life was supposed to be. Each new generation of tyrants must rebrand and re-package the slavery, but in the end, the moment the people realize that it is just another form of enslavement, the process of liberation has begun, as happened in Iceland.
Take a look at where we are in America. Real value-based money has become the crime, while the worthless paper notes produced by the private central bank called the Federal Reserve, originally a death penalty crime under the coinage act of 1792, are the mandated currency. That alone tells you that the system is a fraud and a means of enslavement, when you are not allowed any other form of money but that used by the pyramid scheme!
Why You Should be Freaked Out About the Stock Market
I doubt you will see this chart in the mainstream media any time soon... if EVER.
This is a chart of the US monetary base. In simple terms, it charts how much money the Fed has pumped into the system (at least that it admits). So it’s a kind of visual of the Fed hitting the PANIC button: when the monetary base explodes higher, the Fed is FREAKING out.
You'll note that during the Financial Crisis the Fed didn't do much until the autumn of 2008 when it pumped nearly $1 trillion into the system. Think about that, the Fed didn’t go nuts pumping money until the stuff REALLY hit the fan.
You'll also note that there's only one other time when the monetary base went absolutely vertical: TODAY.
Indeed, the Fed has pumped nearly $500 billion into the system since the start of 2011. Don't even try to tell me this is QE 2. If it was then the monetary base should have spiked in late 2010, NOT in 2011.
Lloyd Blankfein At Raj Trial: "We’re Like A Middleman - It's A Service We Do For The World"
Blankfein Checks Goldman Profit Daily: Galleon Trial
He also briefly shared his view of Goldman Sachs’s function. Asked by the prosecutor about the bank’s market-making business, Blankfein said, “We’re like a middleman.”
“It’s a service we do for the world,” the CEO testified.
He then changed the last two words to “our clients.”
Britain's solution to pensions looted by the banks? Raise retirement age to 80!!!!!!!!
Millions of employees could see their retirement pushed back at least 12 months every two years after George Osborne announced plans to link the pension age to rising longevity.
Emergency Plans in Louisville Raise Eyebrows (Confiscate Private Property)
This is simply more proof that in the event of a disaster the local and federal governments have plans in place to CONFISCATE private property.
In the event of a disaster, your government will NOT be on your side. I repeat, your government will NOT be on your side!
Language in Louisville’s proposed emergency response plan, which would give the city the power to “commandeer private property” and “seize” buildings in a crisis, has given several of the city’s elected leaders pause.
US Finances Rank Near Worst in the World: Study
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42246531
The US ranks near the bottom of developed global economies in terms of financial stability and will stay there unless it addresses its burgeoning debt problems, a new study has found.
In the Sovereign Fiscal Responsibility Index, the Comeback America Initiative ranked 34 countries according to their ability to meet their financial challenges, and the US finished 28th, said David Walker, head of the organization and former US comptroller general.
Utah House stamps gold, silver as legal tender
It may not fold as conveniently as dollar bills, but the Utah House took a first step Friday to recognize gold and silver as legal tender.
It voted 47-26 to pass HB317 by Rep. Brad Galvez, R-West Haven, and sent it to the Senate. The measure would recognize as legal tender gold and silver coins issued by the federal government — not just their face value, but also their value in gold and silver or to a collector.
It also would order the state to study whether Utah should establish an alternative form of legal tender, such as one backed by silver and gold.
US home sales slump to lowest level since 1960s
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Sales of new houses in the United States have slumped to the lowest level since the 1960's, official data showed Wednesday, offering more evidence of the ongoing crisis in the housing market.
Sales tumbled nearly 17 percent in February to 250,000 units, the Commerce Department said, marking the lowest total since at least 1963, when records were first kept.
Real Estate Finance Professor Anthony Sanders: "The Housing Market Has Literally Collapsed; We’re Stuck, It’s Not Going To Revive In The Summer"
This should not come as a surprise to Daily Bail readers. Five more years of falling prices and we might start to reach historical norms for income vs. housing.
Portugal braces for govt collapse over debt vote
Yahoo/AP
LISBON, Portugal (AP) -- Portugal's government is on the verge of collapse after opposition parties withdrew their support for another round of austerity policies aimed at averting a financial bailout...
Greenspan Admits Federal Reserve Is Above The Law and Answers To No One
Webmaster's Commentary:
Which is why Wall Street wallows in record bonuses while the Americans made homeless by the money-addiction are eating dead birds they find in the streets.
US Using ‘Irregular Warfare’ Strategies of Subversion in Africa and South America: Source
An American-Venezuelan lawyer says she possesses a document that would prove Washington has plans to engage in subversive activities in Venezuela and Libya to gain control of their huge oil and gas resources.
In an exclusive interview with Press TV, Eva Golinger said that the document includes a map that offers specific directions and targets.
According to Golinger, the US government has been pursuing the so-called ‘irregular warfare’ strategies of subversion, penetration and infiltration in places that hold strategic energy resources.
“When I was doing that research and I found that the document was the same time when the US government had entered into an agreement with Colombia to increase their military presence,” Golinger said.
“I also found another document called white paper all from the US air force and air force command operation team and it specifically referred to how the US needed to establish this kind of full spectrum control military control to conduct the operations in certain regions, particularly talking about South America,” she added.
Golinger warned that Washington has set an agenda to highjack the ongoing revolutions in the Arab world and North Africa in order to institute friendly regimes and secure its long-term interests.
“Many of the protests that have been taking place throughout the Arab world have been protests that are being conducted by people on their own will. It’s impossible to say that everybody is being manipulated or controlled by the US government. It’s not true,” she went on to say.
“But there are certainly sectors within them that have direct relationships with US intelligence agencies that have been receiving funding from US agencies and from other European agencies to promote that type of chaos and destabilization and therefore provoke some type of regime change.”
The US, on the other hand, has also been making its military presence felt in other places such as Latin America. One major goal, for instance, is to topple the government of Chavez in Venezuela by stopping him from winning the next presidential race in 2012.
While rampant crime, inflation and other problems have eroded his poll ratings, surveys suggest Chavez remains the country’s most popular politician. If re-elected for a third time, he would stay in office for another six-year term.
Afghanistan: Number of children born with deformities increasing
http://uruknet.com/?p=m76338&hd=&size=1&l=e
The number of children born in Afghanistan with misshapen limbs and other deformities is increasing, doctors say, with several blaming intermarriage, drug use and chemicals contained in coalition weapons.
There are no exact statistics of the number of children born with disabilities, but anecdotal evidence from hospitals in Kabul and the provinces suggests it is increasing.
Webmaster's Commentary:
These are the same kinds of deformities found in Falluja in Iraq, where the US detonated a huge amount of depleted uranium weapons.
Libye:
Uranium bombs in Libya? US, UK 'habit of deploying radioactive arms'
Prime Minister David Cameron reveals that Britain has not ruled out arming rebels fighting against Colonel Gaddafi's troops.
Speaking in the House of Commons during Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Cameron said a decision had not yet been made on supplying anti-regime forces with weapons.
However, he added that United Nations resolutions "would not necessarily rule out the provision of assistance to those protecting civilians in certain circumstances".
Webmaster's Commentary:
Oh yes, anyone can see that pouring more weapons into the fray (rather than simply assassinating Qaddafi) is going to protect the civilians from harm.
Or us.
“This is the very essence of the banking industry; to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt!”
The Essence Of The Banking Industry...
"You do not end injustice by being unjust. You do not end racism by being racist. You do not end hate by being hateful. You do not make people free at the point of a gun. You do not bring peace by making war." -- Michael Rivero
Arming Libya rebels not allowed by UN resolutions, legal experts warn US
Washington questioned over its assertion that UN mandate permits supply of arms to anti-Gaddafi rebels
Robert Booth
Guardian
The US is likely to be in breach of the UN security council’s arms embargo on Libya if it sends weapons to the rebels, experts in international law have warned...
US won't rule out arming Libyan rebels
Webmaster's Commentary:
"We owe it to Israel to make the world safe for private central banking!" -- Official White Horse Souse
CIA Mulling Al-Qaeda 2.0
Evidently in homage to the 1970s CIA operations in Afghanistan that gave rise to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the organized-crime syndicate that runs Washington is considering arming the rebels in Libya to aid their struggle against Moammar Gaddafi, as reported by CNN. According to British Prime Minister David Cameron:
"[the United Nations Security Council mandate] allows all necessary measures to protect civilians and populated areas (and) this would not necessarily rule out provision of assistance to those protecting civilians in certain circumstances."
Obama ‘authorizes’ CIA support for Libya rebels
President Barack Obama has signed a presidential directive authorizing the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct secret operations to support rebels in Libya, according to government sources.
Government officials told Reuters on Wednesday that the president had signed a presidential "finding" within the last two or three weeks. The order is a necessary legal step to conduct secret CIA operations, but does not mean that such operations will actually occur.
Webmaster's Commentary:
So, let me wrap my head around this: because CIA members are not technically "in the military", they don't count as "ground troops"?!?
Please remember the question put here right after President Obama's speech: what happens if the air strikes are not enough to get Gaddafi to leave?!?
I guess we have the beginnings of our answer with this "presidential directive".
It is probably just a question of time before Obama does precisely what he has promised the American voters he would not do; deploy troops on the ground in Libya.
CIA Ground Forces Operating in Libya for ‘Several Weeks’
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/world/africa/31intel.html
Already ill-defined and increasingly unpopular, the US War in Libya has taken several more hits today as evidence mounted that the administration has been overtly lying about the US role in the conflict, and had actual been conducting covert operations in the country for “several weeks.”
While President Obama has insisted that no American military ground troops participate in the Libyan campaign, small groups of C.I.A. operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks as part of a shadow force of Westerners that the Obama administration hopes can help bleed Colonel Qaddafi’s military, the officials said.
In addition to the C.I.A. presence, composed of an unknown number of Americans who had worked at the spy agency’s station in Tripoli and others who arrived more recently, current and former British officials said that dozens of British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are working inside Libya. The British operatives have been directing airstrikes from British jets and gathering intelligence about the whereabouts of Libyan government tank columns, artillery pieces and missile installations, the officials said.
US, Britain insert covert agents into Libya: reports
AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States and Britain have inserted covert intelligence agents into Libya to make contact with rebels and to gather data to guide coalition air strikes, a report said Wednesday...
Western military advisers become visible in Benghazi
The first discernible signs of mission creep by the coalition were detected in Libya yesterday. In several places around Benghazi, there were palpable signs that Western "assistance" was active on the ground.
A group speaking with English and Scottish accents was encountered on the road out of Benghazi towards the front line in three four-wheel-drive cars. They said they were carrying out engineering maintenance work. If such personnel are now operational, can military trainers be far behind?
Webmaster's Commentary:
This is precisely how the Vietnam war started: with "advisers".
It is apparent, from this development, that the French, the British, the UK, and NATO are indulging in only what can be characterized as "magical thinking".
There are well-armed, and well-hardened elements in Gadaffi's military which neither the "Coalition" (of the very few) nor the Libyan rebels, are going to to be able to take out without a ground invasion.
One has to wonder what odds Vegas bookmakers are taking as to how soon we will see a land invasion of Libya, which will include US forces.
Lejeune Marines prepare to deploy off Libyan coast
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=8039326
Twenty-two hundred Marines and sailors from Camp Lejeune are preparing to deploy off the coast of Libya in northern Africa. They said goodbye to their families Monday afternoon, and they'll be leaving in the days ahead.
Webmaster's Commentary:
OK, IF Obama is serious about not having any US troops on the ground in Libya, why is this deployment of 2,220 marines and sailors being deployed off the Libyan coast?!?
One has to wonder: just what will be the mission be for these Marines?!?
Air Force spending $4M a day on munitions in Libya
The U.S. Air Force's portion of the Pentagon's $550 million tab for the opening days of the Libyan military campaign was $50 million, senior service officials said Wednesday, and Pentagon discussions about a special emergency spending measure "are unresolved."
"The first thing we did" at the onset of the Libyan operation "was start tracking those additional costs," Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The air service has spent $4 million a day just on the munitions it has fired to pound Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's military, Donley said.
LES VENDEURS D’ARMEMENT SONT HEUREUX!
How and Why The Elite Destroyed 3 Tons of Silver Last Week
Reports have already surfaced about the obscene costs of this “Kinetic Military Action.” In less than a week, this war has already cost Americans $600 million dollars. That is about $100 million a day for this “Action.” It is far cry from the estimated daily price tag of the $300 million a day Afghan war or the $700 million a day Iraq war.
Almost half of the cost ($269 million) has come from the 191 Tomahawk missiles that have been launched into Libya. I think it is extremely interesting to know that each Tomahawk has more than a monster box (500 oz.) of silver inside of each missile. Pure silver has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of all metals. When there is a $1.5 million dollar missile is being produced to secure more oil for the Empire, the Elite will use only the best materials to ensure the best performing results.
So far the US has thrown 3 tons of silver at Libya just with the Tomahawk missiles. That silver is gone forever as it is blown to a million pieces. (Never mind the poor bastards at the at the other end of missile’s target.) If we added the 191 Tomahawks from this “Kinetic Military Action” to the 288 from Gulf War 1, the 325 used in Sebia and Iraq in 98, and the 725 launched in Gulf War 2 that is just over 800,000 ounces of silver or 25 tons of silver gone forever.
America's Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, March 30, 2011
A war on Libya has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than 20 years.
On April 14th 1986, Ronald Reagan ordered a series of bombings directed against Libya under "Operation El Dorado Canyon", in reprisal for an alleged Libya sponsored terrorist bombing of a Berlin discotheque. The pretext was fabricated."
"Barely acknowledged by the Western media, a planned attack on Libya using nuclear weapons, had been contemplated by the Clinton Administration in 1997, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal."
AFRICOM and the Libya War
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24018
Oil industry analysts predict that by the year 2015, the United States will be getting 25 percent of its imported oil from African sources. The biggest oil producers in Africa are Libya, with 47 billion barrels in proved reserves (and maybe lots more yet undiscovered), Nigeria (37.5 billion barrels), Angola (13.5 billion barrels), Algeria (13.4 billion barrels) and the Sudan (6.8 billion barrels).
Webmaster's Commentary:
Whatever the purpose of this military action is, it is absolutely not humanitarian in its nature.
You do not shower regions of a country with depleted uranium weapons, which means a slow and certain death for many, and declare your action is "humanitarian": there is no logic whatsoever in such a characterization.
NATO Chief Opens The Door to Libya Ground Troops
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 a shaky transition after Moammar Gadhafi’s regime has fallen, however that’s supposed to happen. Thousands of NATO troops patrolled Bosnia and Kosovo’s tense streets for years.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Unflipping believable.
deja vu, all over again!
NATO Reportedly Delaying Planned Takeover of Military Command in Libya
NATO is reportedly delaying its planned takeover of military command in Libya as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice says the Obama administration has not ruled out arming Libyan rebels in their fight against Muammar al-Qaddafi.
Libya Rebels Retreat From Oil Port Under Attack
Rebels retreated Wednesday from the key Libyan oil port of Ras Lanouf along the coastal road leading to the capital Tripoli after they came under heavy shelling from ground forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi.
NATO planes flew over the zone where the heaviest fighting was under way and an Associated Press reporter at the scene heard explosions, indicating a new wave of airstrikes against Gadhafi's forces.
Webmaster's Commentary:
OK, any bets as to how soon we are going to see American troops on the ground in Libya now, in light of current circumstances?!?
Libyan rebels lay down terms for ceasefire
Libyan rebels will agree to a ceasefire if Muammar Gaddafi pulls his military forces out of opposition-held cities and allows peaceful protests against his regime, according to an opposition leader.
Webmaster's Commentary:
"Anything is better than letting the Americans take over!"
Libya: The Destruction of a Country. The Bombing of Civilian Targets
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23999
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.
Webmaster's Commentary:
The hypocrisy here reeks mightily, its stench going all the way back to the Oval Office in DC.
Obama has used the UN resolution as his very own "Trojan horse" mechanism for attempting to ultimately control Libya's oil and water resources.
If Russia and China are unable to get an immediate "cease fire" from the UN, one has to wonder how long they will both refrain from acting militarily on Qaddafi's behalf. Remember: China had a lot of development deals with Libya before they had to pull out over 30,000 workers when the unrest started to spread.
And that would definitely set the stage for World War 3.
US-NATO bombings kill civilians in Tripoli
US-NATO air strikes on Tripoli and other Libyan cities have claimed growing numbers of civilian victims, according to the Vatican’s top representative in the Libyan capital.
The report represents a severe blow to the attempts by Washington and its NATO allies, backed by the overwhelming majority of the Western media, to dismiss the Libyan government’s claims of civilian casualties as “propaganda” and portray the continuous air raids as a “humanitarian” defense of the population.
“The so-called humanitarian air raids have taken the lives of dozens of civilians in various areas of Tripoli,” Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli told Agenzia Fides, the Vatican news service.
“Of particular concern, in the district of Buslim, a building collapsed because of the bombing killing 40 people,” he said “Yesterday I reported that the bombing had affected some hospitals, albeit indirectly. I can now confirm that one of these hospitals is in Misda,” a town about 110 miles south of Tripoli.
The Euronews television channel reported that a bombing raid on an ammunition dump in Misda had caused damage to the hospital and nearby homes, wounding at least 13 civilians.
In an interview with Euronews, Bishop Martinelli said that the scores of casualties had been “confirmed to me by people who have lost loved ones because of these bombings.”
He cited another incident in which an air strike hit a munitions warehouse located in close proximity to a civilian neighborhood. “This building was exploding for three, four hours,” he said, claiming more victims.
“If it is true that the bombings appear to be very targeted,” Martrinelli told the Fides news agency, “it is also true that they are hitting military targets which are in the midst of civilian neighborhoods, thus the local people are also affected.”
Webmaster's Commentary:
"But they are free now, and able to vote in elections, just like our dead people do!" -- Official White Horse Souse
COALITION AIR STRIKES: THE BODY BAGS BEGIN PILING UP IN LIBYA
It was only a matter of time before gungho western audiences and pundits would have to face the harsh reality that overwhelming military power produces. So now, 1,400 air sorties and 700 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles later, the civilian body bags are beginning to mount up. And the political ramifications for the acting war parties in Washington, Britain and Paris are inescapable.
NATO Threatens Libya Rebels Over Attacks on Civilians
As if the war in Libya weren’t already complicated and ill-defined enough, NATO Commander Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard threatened the rebels on Thursday, saying the NATO warplanes would start attacking them too if they kept killing civilians.
NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu reiterated this sentiment, saying that NATO “will apply the (UN Security Council) mandate across the board.” It is UN Resolution 1973 that NATO is using as an excuse for its war in Libya.
But it is unlikely to be entirely applied across the board, or NATO’s warplanes will have to start attacking one another. That’s because one top Catholic official in Tripoli said that 40 civilians were killed in his city alone during the bombing campaign.
Though UN Resolution 1973 was initially designed to call for a no-fly zone it also contained language about protecting civilians. This was used by NATO nations as an excuse for the massive air strikes and, at least for some, the notion of funneling arms into the hands of favored rebel factions.
Webmaster's Commentary:
OK, I absolutely give up: whose side is NATO on, please?!?!
CNN Tips Their Hand - Segment On Libya Titled The New World Order
Libya-Owned Bank Got 73 Loans From Fed Discount Window Totaling $35 Billion At 0.25% Interest
Arab Banking Corp., the lender part- owned by the Central Bank of Libya, used a New York branch to get 73 loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve in the 18 months after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed.
Globalists Target 100% State Owned Central Bank of Libya
Eric V. Encina writes: One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned. The world’s globalist financiers and market manipulators do not like it and would continue to their on-going effort to dethrone Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi, bringing an end to Libya as independent nation.
Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.
When the smoke eventually clears from all the cruise missiles and cluster bombs, you will see the Allied reformers move in to reform Libya’s monetary system, pumping it full of worthless dollars, priming it for a series of chaotic inflationary cycles.
GLOBALIST TARGET: The Central Bank of Libya offices in Tripoli.
The CBL is currently a 100% state owned entity and represents the monetary authority in The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The financial structure and general operation procedures of a state bank is of course much different than that of an American or European based central bank. Form starters it is not privately owned, for-profit bank with a undisclosed list of private shareholders like the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are. Libyan constitutional law establishing the CBL stipulates that its central bank maintains monetary stability in Libya and promotes sustained growth of its national economy. Libya also holds more bullion as a proportion of gross domestic product than any country except Lebanon, according to the London-based World Gold Council using January data from the International Monetary Fund. The value of gold is based on the March 25 close of $1,429.74 an ounce.
Will this gold remain in Libya once Allied forces have taken control of Tripoli, or will it lost, or exchanged for pallets upon pallets of paper aka US dollars?
FOLDING LIBYA INTO THE NEW WORLD ORDER
In the Libyan banking charter, one of the primary mandates will be that it is regulating the quantity, quality and cost of credit to meet the requirements of economic growth and monetary stability. This of course, is the very opposite role which privately owned central banks play elsewhere in the world. Private central banks elsewhere create inflation, periodically inflating bubbles by design and then popping them in order to transfer large sums of wealth out of lower and middle class hands and into the hands of the financial elites.
It is becoming easy to diagnose the very root-causes of chaos in the Middle East and the ongoing war-attacks against Libya. Finance, oil, militarization & imperialism, globalization- all of these comprise a running agenda for the New World Order. Egypt and Tunisia have both fallen to interim military dictatorships and have been hooked with billions in cheap loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank.
Any country or nation that is running against the grain of this agenda- going against the orthodoxies of the New World Order, will eventually be flagged and brought to heal by way of military hammer. Regular acts of war against these non-globalist nation states are designed to humiliate, degrade and compromise international human rights- a condition that has become embarrassing to the world at large.
CANADIAN PUPPET DESIGNATED AS LEADER FOR NATO’S LIBYAN OPERATION
Most observers would claim that Canada is neutral in the Libyan conflict. But on this occasion, it’s been the consensus of the world axis of greedy powers that Canada will be running the front-of-house for their intervention in Libya’s civil chaos. With respect to Honourable Canadian leaders and officials, Canada’s participation in this particular war and in the cover-up for Obama in Libya is too adroit for the sake of profits and taking over resources in that particular region of the world.
“Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Friday that Lt. General Charles Bouchard has been designated to lead the alliance’s military campaign in Libya. (Yahoo News, March 25, 2011). “Bouchard is stationed in Naples, Italy, at the Allied Joint Force Command. Bouchard’s recent job was deputy commander of NORAD, reporting to an American general. MacKay adds here, “He will be commander of the NATO operations, yet to be fully defined NATO operations”.
NATO'S FALL GUY: Lt. Canadian General Charles Bouchard will be running the Libyan shop floor for the US, UK and France.
Here is another challenge for the Canadian people. Another repercussion is that the Canadian budget will also be leached by such participations as the national Bank of Canada is also based on debt finance. If Canada, in not too distant future, would continue to participate in war(s), it would then become a fully fledged globalist war-nation, joining the likes of the USA and the UK.
One wonders what will become a world that is at perpetually at war with itself? Why build wealth only to have it destroyed by wars? Why collect more taxes, spend and wantonly waste state revenue, create money out of nothing at the point of usury, and lend and/or borrow money at interest that disastrously piles up national debt at sky-rocketing rates? We see the results time and time again: the economy collapse, creation of poverty, and the continuing finance of weapons’ manufacturing, arms sales and the most technologically sophisticated wars in history that cause the most unimaginable devastations and irreparable damages to human lives and nations.
If the Western based foreign policies continued to be war-based, bent on controlling the world’s resources, there seems to be no worse future for mankind.
Wow That Was Fast! Libyan Rebels Have Already Established A New Central Bank Of Libya
Economic Collapse Blog
The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company. Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants. They sure do get a lot done. What a skilled bunch of rebels – they can fight a war during the day and draw up a new central bank and a new national oil company at night without any outside help whatsoever. If only the rest of us were so versatile! But isn’t forming a central bank something that could be done after the civil war is over? According to Bloomberg, the Transitional National Council has “designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.” Apparently someone felt that it was very important to get pesky matters such as control of the banks and control of the money supply out of the way even before a new government is formed.
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Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they have created a new national oil company to replace the corporation controlled by leader Muammar Qaddafi whose assets were frozen by the United Nations Security Council.
The Transitional National Council released a statement announcing the decision made at a March 19 meeting to establish the “Libyan Oil Company as supervisory authority on oil production and policies in the country, based temporarily in Benghazi, and the appointment of an interim director general” of the company.
The Council also said it “designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”
The Security Council adopted a resolution on March 17 that froze the foreign assets of the Libyan National Oil Corp. and the Central Bank of Libya, both described in the text as “a potential source of funding” for Qaddafi’s regime.
Libya holds Africa’s largest oil reserve. Output has fallen to fewer than 400,000 barrels a day, Shokri Ghanem, chairman of the National Oil Corp., said on March 19. The country produced 1.59 million barrels a day in January, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Exports may be halted for “many months” because of sanctions and unrest, the International Energy Agency said.
‘Extended Shutdown’
Brent crude for May settlement on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange fell 0.3 percent to $114.62 as of 8:50 a.m. It surged to a 2 1/2-year high of $119.79 on Feb 24 as geopolitical tensions spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
'Well, knock me over with a feather! 'Libyan rebels' to start oil exports soon'
Well, knock me over with a feather! 'Libyan rebels' to start oil exports soon. 27 Mar 2011 Oil fields in rebel-held territory in Libya are producing between 100,000 and 130,000 barrels a day, and the opposition plans to begin exporting oil "in less than a week", a rebel representative said on Sunday. "We are producing about 100,000 to 130,000 barrels a day, we can easily up that to about 300,000 a day," said Ali Tarhoni, the rebel representative responsible for economy, finance and oil, at a news conference. He said the [US-funded] rebel government had agreed an oil contract with Qatar, which would market the crude, and that he expected exports to begin in "less than a week". [Well, at least there's no doubt as to why the USociopaths invaded.]
Libyan Rebel Leader Spent Much of Past 20 Years in Suburban Virginia
By Chris Adams | McClatchy Newspapers
The new leader of Libya's opposition military spent the past two decades in suburban Virginia but felt compelled — even in his late-60s — to return to the battlefield in his homeland, according to people who know him.
Khalifa Hifter was once a top military officer for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but after a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s, Hifter switched to the anti-Gadhafi opposition. In the early 1990s, he moved to suburban Virginia, where he established a life but maintained ties to anti-Gadhafi groups.
Late last week, Hifter was appointed to lead the rebel army, which has been in chaos for weeks. He is the third such leader in less than a month, and rebels interviewed in Libya openly voiced distrust for the most recent leader, Abdel Fatah Younes, who had been at Gadhafi's side until just a month ago.
At a news conference Thursday, the rebel's military spokesman said Younes will stay as Hifter's chief of staff, and added that the army — such as it is — would need "weeks" of training.
According to Abdel Salam Badr of Richmond, Va., who said he has known Hifter all his life — including back in Libya — Hifter -- whose name is sometimes spelled Haftar, Hefter or Huftur -- was motivated by his intense anti-Gadhafi feelings.
"Libyans — every single one of them — they hate that guy so much they will do whatever it takes," Badr said in an interview Saturday. "Khalifa has a personal grudge against Gadhafi... That was his purpose in life."
According to Badr and another friend in the U.S., a Georgia-based Libyan activist named Salem alHasi, Hifter left for Libya two weeks ago.
McClatchy Newspapers published a profile of Hifter on Sunday. Headlined “New Rebel Leader Spent Much of Past 20 years in Suburban Virginia,” the article notes that he was once a top commander for the Gaddafi regime, until “a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s.”
Hifter then went over to the anti-Gaddafi opposition, eventually emigrating to the United States, where he lived until two weeks ago when he returned to Libya to take command in Benghazi.
The McClatchy profile concluded, “Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, DC.” It cited a friend who “said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.”
To those who can read between the lines, this profile is a thinly disguised indication of Hifter’s role as a CIA operative. How else does a high-ranking former Libyan military commander enter the United States in the early 1990s, only a few years after the Lockerbie bombing, and then settle near the US capital, except with the permission and active assistance of US intelligence agencies? Hifter actually lived in Vienna, Virginia, about five miles from CIA headquarters in Langley, for two decades.
The agency was very familiar with Hifter’s military and political work. A Washington Post report of March 26, 1996 describes an armed rebellion against Gaddafi in Libya and uses a variant spelling of his name. The article cites witnesses to the rebellion who report that “its leader is Col. Khalifa Haftar, of a contra-style group based in the United States called the Libyan National Army.”
The comparison is to the “contra” terrorist forces financed and armed by the US government in the 1980s against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra scandal, which rocked the Reagan administration in 1986-87, involved the exposure of illegal US arms sales to Iran, with the proceeds used to finance the contras in defiance of a congressional ban. Congressional Democrats covered up the scandal and rejected calls to impeach Reagan for sponsoring the flagrantly illegal activities of a cabal of former intelligence operatives and White House aides.
A 2001 book, Manipulations africaines, published by Le Monde diplomatique, traces the CIA connection even further back, to 1987, reporting that Hifter, then a colonel in Gaddafi’s army, was captured fighting in Chad in a Libyan-backed rebellion against the US-backed government of Hissène Habré. He defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his own militia, which operated in Chad until Habré was overthrown by a French-supported rival, Idriss Déby, in 1990.
According to this book, “the Haftar force, created and financed by the CIA in Chad, vanished into thin air with the help of the CIA shortly after the government was overthrown by Idriss Déby.” The book also cites a Congressional Research Service report of December 19, 1996 that the US government was providing financial and military aid to the LNSF and that a number of LNSF members were relocated to the United States.
This information is available to anyone who conducts even a cursory Internet search, but it has not been reported by the corporate-controlled media in the United States, except in the dispatch from McClatchy, which avoids any reference to the CIA. None of the television networks, busily lauding the “freedom fighters” of eastern Libya, has bothered to report that these forces are now commanded by a longtime collaborator of US intelligence services.
Nor have the liberal and “left” enthusiasts of the US-European intervention in Libya taken note. They are too busy hailing the Obama administration for its multilateral and “consultative” approach to war, supposedly so different from the unilateral and “cowboy” approach of the Bush administration in Iraq. That the result is the same—death and destruction raining down on the population, the trampling of the sovereignty and independence of a former colonial country—means nothing to these apologists for imperialism.
The role of Hifter, aptly described 15 years ago as the leader of a “contra-style group,” demonstrates the real class forces at work in the Libyan tragedy. Whatever genuine popular opposition was expressed in the initial revolt against the corrupt Gaddafi dictatorship, the rebellion has been hijacked by imperialism.
The US and European intervention in Libya is aimed not at bringing “democracy” and “freedom,” but at installing in power stooges of the CIA who will rule just as brutally as Gaddafi, while allowing the imperialist powers to loot the country’s oil resources and use Libya as a base of operations against the popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.
American Media Silent on CIA Ties to Libya Rebel Commander
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24041
It has been six days since Khalifa Hifter was appointed the top military commander for the Libyan rebel forces fighting the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. His appointment was noted by reporter Nancy Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers, a US regional chain that includes the Sacramento Bee and the Kansas City Star.
The World Socialist Web Site published a perspective March 28 taking note of both the McClatchy articles and earlier reports providing more details of Hifter’s connections to the CIA. These included a 1996 article in theWashington Post and a book published by the French weekly Le Monde diplomatique. (See A CIA commander for the Libyan rebels”)
Hifter’s name has not appeared in the bulk of the corporate-controlled US media. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times have all been curiously silent, despite having more journalists in the war zone than McClatchy. The US television networks have likewise kept quiet on the identity of the Libyan rebel commander, with the exception of a brief interview with Hifter on ABC News March 27, which made no reference to his previous long-term residence within five miles of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
There is no credible explanation for this silence from the standpoint of journalism. There is no security reason to keep the name of the Libyan commander secret—it was publicly announced by the Transitional National Council in Benghazi, and Hifter is certainly well known to Gaddafi, who employed him as a commander of Libyan-backed forces in the civil wars in Chad in the 1980s.
The obvious conclusion is that the American media is keeping silent in order to deprive the American people of information that would help clarify the nature of the US military intervention in Libya—and trigger opposition to it. The selection of a longtime CIA collaborator as commander of the rebels makes nonsense of the official claim that the United States is intervening militarily in Libya to protect civilian lives, rather than taking sides in a civil war in order to gain control of Libya’s oil assets and strengthen the position of American imperialism in the region.
Two words that were notably absent from Obama’s Monday night speech on national television were “rebels” and “CIA.” Both the Obama administration and the US intelligence apparatus want to downplay their role in the direction of the rebel ground forces. For the American media, that amounts to a direct order, to which the editors of the Times, Post, etc., salute and say, “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”
In the case of Khalifa Hifter, this responsibility “not to publish” extends beyond the concealment of the documentary evidence of American war crimes and diplomatic conspiracies uncovered by WikiLeaks. The American media is withholding from the American public basic facts about the war in Libya, widely reported overseas and easily available to those who know where to look. There is no other word for this but censorship.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Imagine my (complete absence of) surprise on this development!
Irak:
One Nation Under Siege: Thousands of tons of US nuclear waste exploded in Iraq through use of depleted uranium munitions (90 min)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5522575736561316064#
How did we become so evil? Why do we allow ourselves & our nation to stay so evil?
In the 1st Gulf War, 420 tons of depleted uranium were exploded in & around Iraq. In the second Gulf War, an additional 2,400 tons of depleted uranium were used.
The atomicity from 800 tons of depleted uranium is equal to 41,000 Nagasaki bombs.
Wisconsin:
Thousands Of Farmers To Descend On WI Capitol With Their Tractors
Thousands of farmers from across the dairyland are about to descend on Wisconsin’s capitol to show their solidarity with unions fighting to keep collective bargaining rights.
In fact, they’re not coming alone — they’re bring their tractors. This is in response to the new radical bill that Governor Walker is trying to enact on the unions, clearly attempting to neuter them altogether.
Webmaster's Commentary:
The farmers understand that this government-enforced poverty for the sake of the bankers will not stop with teachers.
100,000 strong in Wisconsin
MADISON, WI: This is what a whole hell of a lot of people look like
Webmaster's Commentary:
Starting to look like Cairo!
Anyone know if Israel is planning to send Mercenaries to shoot the teachers?
Honolulu Rally in Support of Wisconsin Teachers
Webmaster's Commentary:
I was originally supposed to speak at yesterday's rally in Honolulu, but the Planned Parenthood people were grandstanding, and their leader is a really hot blond babe that the TV crews strangely could not look away from as she talked about birth control, so the available time for speeches ran out and I (not a hot blonde talking about birth control) was left out. But here are the talking points for my planned speech.
This last week I have been flooded with emails screaming about teachers and unions, but this debate is far larger than that. This is not about teachers or unions, but about all Americans facing a government that wants to pay for Wall Street's fraudulent mortgage backed securities by "sharing the sacrifice" i.e. dumping the losses on the public, almost $12.3 trillion according to PBS and FCIC report.
The constant message is "the people must make do with less so that Wall Street may have more." But Wall Street is trying to trick the public into thinking that the teachers are the bad guys, when the teachers had nothing to so with the financial ruin of the nation. It's just classic divide and conquer; turn the public against each other to save the rich, and if the teachers lose, then it will be the police, then the firefighters, then the repair men, then the trash pickup, then the road layers, then you, then me. This, we are told will save the state budgets because if we all make less money, the state collects less taxes. (Wait a moment, how is that supposed to work?)
So what is really going on? What is going on is that we are in the middle of the biggest financial swindle since the Great South Seas Company fraud collapsed in 1721. Starting after Congress repealed the Glass Steagal act in 1999, Wall Street went on a gambling binge with a new "product" called the mortgage backed security or the collateralized debt obligation. They were so popular that in order to meet demand, failed mortgages were bundled into the investments, Congress (themselves invested in those Wall Street companies) lured marginal homebuyers in with an $8000 first time homebuyer credit, and in some cases such as Bear Sterns, The same mortgages were pledged over and over again into multiple investment packages. Fraud was rampant, but as long as the money kept pouring in, nobody wanted to rock the boat. Even Alan Greenspan is on video admitting that fraud and criminality pervade the American financial system. So we better slap those teachers around if we want to save the country!
Then the fraud became exposed, and major foreign banks sued to force Wall Street to buy back all the fraudulent mortgage-backed securities. Even though 90% of Americans were opposed to using tax money to save Wall Street from its own greed and recklessness, Congress, themselves invested in those Wall Street firms, passed TARP and a host of other programs to use YOUR money to buy back those fraudulent mortgage-backed securities, calling them "toxic assets" so the taxpayers did not realize what was going on, or that these assets could never ever produce a profit despite promises to the contrary. To date, $12.3 trillion dollars looted from the American economy, and no end in site as Bernanke cranks up those printing presses again, to shower new fresh money on the banks, which drives the value of the dollars you already worked for and saved downward, which you are seeing today in higher prices at the supermarket and gas stations.
During the congressional hearings into the financial melt-down, Damon Slivers stated, "We can either have a rational resolution to the foreclosure crisis or we can preserve the capital structure of the banks. We can’t do both. Which shall we do?”
What the Federal Government decided to so is that in order to save the banks, private homes needed to be sacrificed to the banks to cover the losses from the forced buy-back of the fraudulent mortgage backed securities. This is wealth confiscation to protect the banks; a larger version of Roosevelt's 1933 gold confiscation, only done in a way to trick Americans into thinking that it is their own fault they are losing their homes. The scam is simple. Starting under Bush and acceleration under Obama,. Tax incentives were given to corporations to reward the transfer of high paying jobs to other countries via "offshoring", an odd thing to do at a time when (like today) the government whines that tax revenues are in decline. But the goal was to take away Americans' ability to pay their mortgages in order to make it easier for banks to take homes to put on their balance sheets, to stay solvent even as trillions of dollars are being paid to buy back the fraudulent mortgage backed securities, code-named the "toxic assets". Just days ago, when Obama announced a token settlement to end "foreclosuregate" the White House official press release admitted the goal was to "ramp up the foreclosure process." That is, to return to allowing banks to confiscate private homes to cover the losses from the swindle, unhampered by issues of legality of process.
So, what happens when teachers, firefighters, police, bricklayers, you and I are forced to accept lower salaries? Why, our homes become fodder for the foreclosure machine. Governor Walker isn't lost lowering the teachers pay; he is helping the banks take their homes. The teachers in Wisconsin are drawing a line in the sand and saying "we will not let you take our jobs so the banks can take our homes to pay for Wall Street crime." They are fighting not only for themselves but for Every American who has been pushed to the limit and beyond. Look at all the homeless and hungry people in America right now. That is your future if we do not unite and support the teachers, because every time Americans surrender a little more of their standard of living, Wall Street gets bolder and bolder, and demands that much more. Our government can spend $12.3 trillion to save the bankers, but in front of our local Safeway I see teachers and students selling brownies to buy basic school supplies. And now Governor Walker wants to take more away from the teachers. There is something a little sick about that set of priorities.
If we are a free people, if this is a free nation, then we have the freedom to say "no." The is no freedom without the freedom to say ,"No." The people of Wisconsin are saying "no" and we must all unite to join them.
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