Marc Arubio? Ted Cruz? a Republican majority in the house and senate? carpet
bombing the Middle East? the end of women's health care, food stamps, social
security as we know it, medicare, medicaid, immigrants' rights, amelioration
of racial issues? An even more aggressive military stance than Hillary's. I
live in New York and New York will in all likelihood, give its electoral
votes to the Democratic party, regardless of what I do.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2016 10:32 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: What Hillary Knew About Libya
Hillary Clinton is not a friend of Working Class America. She belongs to
the Empire. Of course we all are under the control of the Empire, but
Hillary Clinton enthusiastically supports the Empire. It troubles me to
hear some of my Progressive friends say that if Bernie Sanders does not win
the nod, they will vote for Clinton as the lesser of two evils. I can only
conclude that they do not grasp the reality of a Clinton presidency.
Indeed, even a win by Bernie Sanders is not going to result in some
fundamental change in our government. Sanders is still controlled by the
Empire in so far as their World Dominance is concerned. For me, a vote for
Bernie is a real compromise of my basic values. But if...and sorry to say,
when he loses I will throw my vote away on one of the far Left candidates on
my ballot rather than throw it away on Clinton. If the Republican Party
can't shake out Donald Trump, leaving themselves with several other quieter
but similar minded Puppets, Clinton will be our next president. She does
not need our vote, which is, whether we want to admit it or not, is our
confirmation that she is worthy of the job. I just can't bring myself to be
among those numbers.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/13/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
public opinion.
Parry writes: "In Official Washington's propaganda world, the U.S.
government and its 'allies' are always standing for what's right and
good and the 'enemies' are the epitome of evil doing the vilest
things. But some emails to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton depicted
a far different reality."
Hillary Clinton. (photo: NBC)
What Hillary Knew About Libya
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
13 January 16
In Official Washington's propaganda world, the U.S. government and its
"allies" are always standing for what's right and good and the "enemies"
are
the epitome of evil doing the vilest things. But some emails to
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton depicted a far different reality,
writes Robert Parry.
To justify U.S. "regime changes," the U.S. government has routinely
spread rumors and made other dubious claims which - even when later
doubted or debunked - are left in place indefinitely as corrosive
propaganda, eating away at the image of various "enemies" and deforming
Even though this discredited propaganda can have a long half-life -confirmation."
continuing to contaminate the public's ability to perceive reality for
years
- President Barack Obama and his administration have shown no
inclination to undertake a kind of HAZMAT clean-up of the polluted
information environment that American citizens have been forced to
live in.
A recent case in point was the emergence - in the State Department's
New Year's Eve release of more than 3,000 emails to and from former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - of evidence that two key
propaganda themes used to advance violent "regime change" in Libya in
2011 may have originated with rebel-inspired rumors passed on by
Clinton's private adviser Sidney Blumenthal.
A March 27, 2011 email from Blumenthal reminded Clinton that "I
communicated more than a week ago on this story - [Libyan leader
Muammar] Qaddafi placing bodies to create PR stunts about supposed
civilian casualties as a result of Allied bombing - though underlining
it was a rumor. But now, as you know, [Defense Secretary] Robert Gates
gives credence to it."
Blumenthal's email, which was slugged "Rumor: Q[addafi]'s rape policy,"
then
plunged ahead into his new rumor: "Sources now say, again rumor (that
is, this information comes from the rebel side and is unconfirmed
independently by Western intelligence), that Qaddafi has adopted a
rape policy and has even distributed Viagra to troops. The incident at
the Tripoli press conference involving a woman claiming to be raped is
likely to be part of a much larger outrage. Will seek further
A month later, this bizarre Viagra-rape angle became part of a United"staging"
Nations presentation by then U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice
who brought up the Viagra charge in a debate about the evils of
Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
A U.N. diplomat at the closed session on April 28, 2011, told The
Guardian that "It was during a discussion about whether there is moral
equivalence between the Gaddafi forces and the rebels. She listed
human rights abuses by Gaddafi's forces, including snipers shooting
children in the street and the Viagra story."
On Blumenthal's other propaganda point, it's not clear where Defense
Secretary Gates got the idea to accuse Gaddafi of "staging" scenes of
U.S.-inflicted carnage, but Blumenthal's email indicates that he was
disseminating that rumor which might have been picked up by Gates,
rather than independently confirmed by Gates. (It's also true that the
excuse has been used before when evidence emerges of U.S. bombsU.S.
killing
civilians.)
Media Self-Interest
Yet, regardless of the truth or falsity of such U.S. claims and
counter-claims, the chance that someone inside Official Washington is
going to review the lies and exaggerations used to rationalize a major
foreign policy initiative - in this case, the violent overthrow of theattack on Libya."
Gaddafi regime - to, in effect, "clear" Gaddafi's name is remote at best.
The few cases of the media debunking U.S. propaganda, such as exposing
the made-up claims about Iraqi soldiers killing babies on incubators
before the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91, are rare exceptions to the
rule. Even rarer are cases when the U.S. government admits that it
relied on false information, such as the intelligence community
recanting its pre-invasion claims about Iraq hiding WMD stockpiles in
2002-03.
The much more common approach is to simply leave the decaying
propaganda in place and move on to the next target of opportunity.
There is little benefit for anyone to undertake the painstaking work
of separating whatever slices of truth exist within the rot of lies
and exaggerations that were used to justify some war.
The way mainstream journalism usually works in America is that a
reporter who challenges U.S. government propaganda aimed at a foreign
"enemy" is putting his or her career at risk. The reporter's
patriotism will be questioned amid suggestions that he or she is a
"fill-in-the-blank-with-the-villain's-name" apologist.
And since the reality - whatever it is - is usually fuzzy, there is
almost never any vindication for a brave stance. So, the smart career
play is to go along with the propaganda or stay silent.
A similar reality exists inside the U.S. government. Honest
intelligence analysts can expect no rewards if they debunk one of
these propaganda themes, especially after a number of important U.S.
officials have gone out publicly and sold the falsehood to the people.
Making the Secretary of State or the Defense Secretary or the
President look bad is not a great career move.
France's Designs
Plus, the propaganda themes, which stress American righteousness in
standing up to foreign evil, are useful in obscuring the
self-interested motives that often circle around a killing field like
the one that Libya has become.
For instance, another Blumenthal memo to Clinton explained France's
political and pecuniary interests in toppling Gaddafi and thus
thwarting his ambitious plans to use Libya's oil wealth as a means of
freeing parts of Africa from French domination.
In an April 2, 2011 email, Blumenthal informed Clinton that sources
close to one of Gaddafi sons were reporting that "Qaddafi's government
holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver" and the hoard
had been moved from the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli closer to the
border with Niger and Chad.
"This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was
intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the
Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone
African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA)."
Blumenthal then added that "According to knowledgeable individuals,
this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion.
French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the
current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that
influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to commit France to the
The email added: "According to these individuals, Sarkozy's plans aremission.
driven by the following issues: a. A desire to gain a greater share of
Libya oil production, b. Increase French influence in North Africa, c.
Improve his internal political situation in France, d. Provide the
French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the
world, e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi's long term
plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa."
In an earlier email, dated March 27, 2011, Blumenthal also discussed
the French interests in the conflict, citing "knowledgeable
individuals" who said that Sarkozy "is pressing to have France emerge
from this crisis as the principal foreign ally of any new government
that takes power."
So do you think it would it be easier for the Obama administration to
rally American support behind this "regime change" by explaining how
the French wanted to steal Libya's wealth and maintain French
neocolonial influence over Africa - or would Americans respond better
to propaganda themes about Gaddafi passing out Viagra to his troops so
they could rape more women while his snipers targeted innocent
children? Bingo!
Seeing No Jihadists
In selling the Libyan policy to the American people, it was also
important to downplay another part of the crisis: that Gaddafi was
right when he warned of the danger from Islamic radicals, including Al
Qaeda's North African affiliate, operating in eastern Libya.
Gaddafi's original military offensive was aimed at these groups, but
the Obama administration's propagandists twisted the issue into
Gaddafi supposedly committing "genocide" against the people of eastern
Libya, thus requiring a U.S.-led "responsibility to protect" or "R2P"
However, in the emails to Clinton, Blumenthal conveyed the actualLibya."
reality - that these supposedly innocent anti-Gaddafi rebels in the
east indeed included jihadist elements. He wrote: "Sarkozy is also
concerned about continuing reports that radical/terrorist groups such
as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC [the rebel's National Transitional
Council] and its military command.
"Accordingly, he [Sarkozy] asked [a] sociologist . who has long
established ties to Israel, Syria, and other nations in the Middle
East, to use his contacts to determine the level of influence AQIM and
other terrorist groups have inside of the NLC. Sarkozy also asked for
reports setting out a clear picture of the role of the Muslim
Brotherhood in the rebel leadership."
Blumenthal added: "Senior European security officials caution that
AQIM is watching developments in Libya, and elements of that
organization have been in touch with tribes in the southeastern part
of the country. These [European] officials are concerned that in a
post-Qaddafi Libya, France and other western European countries must
move quickly to ensure that the new government does not allow AQIM and
others to set up small, semi-autonomous local entities - or
'Caliphates' - in the oil and gas producing regions of southeastern
In other words, the danger of Islamic terror groups exploiting the"R2P"
power vacuum that the Obama administration and its Western allies were
creating inside Libya was well understood in March 2011, but the supposed
mission pressed ahead nevertheless.start.
The "R2P" advocates also turned a blind eye to evidence that black
Africans working for Gaddafi's government were being systematically
rounded up and murdered. As Blumenthal reported to Clinton, "Speaking
in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops
continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the
fighting."
These so-called "mercenaries" were contractors from black Africa where
many people viewed Gaddafi as a champion of the continent's
development, independent of the former Western imperial powers and the
harsh demands of the International Monetary Fund. While some of these
blacks were part of Gaddafi's security structure, others were involved
in construction projects.
Whatever their assignments, executing prisoners of war is a war crime
- and the image of U.S.-backed rebels singling out black Africans for
execution turns the pretense of an "R2P" mission on its head - or
perhaps all those noble humanitarian arguments were just phony from the
As Brad Hoff of the Levant Report wrote, "historians of the 2011 NATOjihadists.
war in Libya will be sure to notice a few of the truly explosive
confirmations contained in the new emails: admissions of rebel war
crimes, special ops trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of
protests, Al Qaeda embedded in the U.S. backed opposition, Western
nations jockeying for access to Libyan oil, the nefarious origins of
the absurd Viagra mass rape claim, and concern over Gaddafi's gold and
silver reserves threatening European currency."
Reality's Hard Sell
But it probably would have been a hard sell to the American people if
the U.S. government explained the dark side of the "R2P" mission -
that it involved systematic executions of blacks and rapacious Western
officials grasping for oil and gold - as well as creating a vacuum for
Instead, it worked much better to promote wild rumors about Gaddafi'sposition inside Libya.
perfidy.
It is in this way that U.S. citizens, the "We the People" who were
supposed to be the nation's sovereigns, are treated more like cattle
herded to the slaughterhouse.
Some of us did try to warn the public about these risks. For instance,
on March 25, 2011, days before Blumenthal's emails, I described the
hazard from the neocon "regime change" strategies in Libya and Syria,
writing:
"In rallying U.S. support for these rebellions, the neocons risked
repeating the mistake they made by pushing the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
They succeeded in ousting Saddam Hussein, who had long been near the
top of Israel's enemies list, but the war also removed him as a
bulwark against both Islamic extremists and Iranian influence in the
Persian Gulf. .
"By embracing these uprisings, the neocons invited unintended
consequences, including further Islamic radicalization of the region
and deepening anti-Americanism. Indeed, a rebel victory over Gaddafi
risked putting extremists from an al-Qaeda affiliate in a powerful
"The major U.S. news media aided the neocon cause by focusing onpublic opinion.
Gaddafi's historic ties to terrorism, including the dubious charge
that he was behind the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988. There was little
attention paid to his more recent role in combating the surge in
al-Qaeda activity, especially in eastern Libya, the base of the revolt
against him." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Neocons Regroup on Libyan
War."] Though the 2011 concerns about Al Qaeda have since morphed into
worries about its spinoff, the Islamic State, the larger point remains
valid regarding Libya, which descended into the status of failed state
after Gaddafi's ouster and his brutal torture-murder on Oct. 20, 2011.
Secretary Clinton greeted the news of Gaddafi's demise with glee,
exulting, "we came, we saw, he died" and then laughed. [See
Consortiumnews.com's "Hillary Clinton's Failed Libya Doctrine."] More
than four years later, the Obama administration still struggles to
piece together some order from the chaos in Libya, where Western
governments have even abandoned their Tripoli embassies. Meanwhile,
the Islamic State and other jihadist groups continue to expand their
control of Libyan territory.
In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has hung on despite continued
efforts by the Obama administration and its regional Sunni allies to
remove him. The four years of war - waged mostly by jihadists armed
and financed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Western powers - have
killed a quarter million people and made millions homeless, now
spreading the Mideast's disorders into Europe where the refugee crisis
is dividing the European Union.
Of course, in the U.S. mainstream media, the Syrian deaths and
destruction are blamed almost entirely on Assad, much as the conflict
in Libya was blamed on Gaddafi and the U.S. invasion of Iraq was
blamed on Saddam Hussein. In the world created by U.S. propaganda, it
is always some other guy's fault.
In the Syrian case, the major decaying propaganda theme that continues
to contaminate public understanding of the crisis has been the
accusation that Assad "gassed his own people" with sarin on Aug. 21,
2013. Although independent evidence has long been pointing in the
direction of a rebel provocation, perhaps aided by Turkey, the old
rotting propaganda is routinely dug up by neocons and their liberal
interventionist sidekicks to justify why "Assad must go!" [See
Consortiumnews.com's "The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case."] In the case
of Libya, Blumenthal's emails provide a useful window into what was
actually happening behind the scenes - and what Secretary of State
Clinton knew.
________________________________________
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can
buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here
or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can
order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to
various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes
America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
valid.
Hillary Clinton. (photo: NBC)
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/01/12/what-hillary-knew-about-libya/ht
tps:// consortiumnews.com/2016/01/12/what-hillary-knew-about-libya/
What Hillary Knew About Libya
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
13 January 16
In Official Washington's propaganda world, the U.S. government and its
"allies" are always standing for what's right and good and the "enemies"
are
the epitome of evil doing the vilest things. But some emails to
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton depicted a far different reality,
writes Robert Parry.
o justify U.S. "regime changes," the U.S. government has routinely
spread rumors and made other dubious claims which - even when later
doubted or debunked - are left in place indefinitely as corrosive
propaganda, eating away at the image of various "enemies" and deforming
Even though this discredited propaganda can have a long half-life -confirmation."
continuing to contaminate the public's ability to perceive reality for
years
- President Barack Obama and his administration have shown no
inclination to undertake a kind of HAZMAT clean-up of the polluted
information environment that American citizens have been forced to
live in.
A recent case in point was the emergence - in the State Department's
New Year's Eve release of more than 3,000 emails to and from former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - of evidence that two key
propaganda themes used to advance violent "regime change" in Libya in
2011 may have originated with rebel-inspired rumors passed on by
Clinton's private adviser Sidney Blumenthal.
A March 27, 2011 email from Blumenthal reminded Clinton that "I
communicated more than a week ago on this story - [Libyan leader
Muammar] Qaddafi placing bodies to create PR stunts about supposed
civilian casualties as a result of Allied bombing - though underlining
it was a rumor. But now, as you know, [Defense Secretary] Robert Gates
gives credence to it."
Blumenthal's email, which was slugged "Rumor: Q[addafi]'s rape policy,"
then
plunged ahead into his new rumor: "Sources now say, again rumor (that
is, this information comes from the rebel side and is unconfirmed
independently by Western intelligence), that Qaddafi has adopted a
rape policy and has even distributed Viagra to troops. The incident at
the Tripoli press conference involving a woman claiming to be raped is
likely to be part of a much larger outrage. Will seek further
A month later, this bizarre Viagra-rape angle became part of a United"staging"
Nations presentation by then U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice
who brought up the Viagra charge in a debate about the evils of
Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
A U.N. diplomat at the closed session on April 28, 2011, told The
Guardian that "It was during a discussion about whether there is moral
equivalence between the Gaddafi forces and the rebels. She listed
human rights abuses by Gaddafi's forces, including snipers shooting
children in the street and the Viagra story."
On Blumenthal's other propaganda point, it's not clear where Defense
Secretary Gates got the idea to accuse Gaddafi of "staging" scenes of
U.S.-inflicted carnage, but Blumenthal's email indicates that he was
disseminating that rumor which might have been picked up by Gates,
rather than independently confirmed by Gates. (It's also true that the
excuse has been used before when evidence emerges of U.S. bombsU.S.
killing
civilians.)
Media Self-Interest
Yet, regardless of the truth or falsity of such U.S. claims and
counter-claims, the chance that someone inside Official Washington is
going to review the lies and exaggerations used to rationalize a major
foreign policy initiative - in this case, the violent overthrow of theattack on Libya."
Gaddafi regime - to, in effect, "clear" Gaddafi's name is remote at best.
The few cases of the media debunking U.S. propaganda, such as exposing
the made-up claims about Iraqi soldiers killing babies on incubators
before the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91, are rare exceptions to the
rule. Even rarer are cases when the U.S. government admits that it
relied on false information, such as the intelligence community
recanting its pre-invasion claims about Iraq hiding WMD stockpiles in
2002-03.
The much more common approach is to simply leave the decaying
propaganda in place and move on to the next target of opportunity.
There is little benefit for anyone to undertake the painstaking work
of separating whatever slices of truth exist within the rot of lies
and exaggerations that were used to justify some war.
The way mainstream journalism usually works in America is that a
reporter who challenges U.S. government propaganda aimed at a foreign
"enemy" is putting his or her career at risk. The reporter's
patriotism will be questioned amid suggestions that he or she is a
"fill-in-the-blank-with-the-villain's-name" apologist.
And since the reality - whatever it is - is usually fuzzy, there is
almost never any vindication for a brave stance. So, the smart career
play is to go along with the propaganda or stay silent.
A similar reality exists inside the U.S. government. Honest
intelligence analysts can expect no rewards if they debunk one of
these propaganda themes, especially after a number of important U.S.
officials have gone out publicly and sold the falsehood to the people.
Making the Secretary of State or the Defense Secretary or the
President look bad is not a great career move.
France's Designs
Plus, the propaganda themes, which stress American righteousness in
standing up to foreign evil, are useful in obscuring the
self-interested motives that often circle around a killing field like
the one that Libya has become.
For instance, another Blumenthal memo to Clinton explained France's
political and pecuniary interests in toppling Gaddafi and thus
thwarting his ambitious plans to use Libya's oil wealth as a means of
freeing parts of Africa from French domination.
In an April 2, 2011 email, Blumenthal informed Clinton that sources
close to one of Gaddafi sons were reporting that "Qaddafi's government
holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver" and the hoard
had been moved from the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli closer to the
border with Niger and Chad.
"This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was
intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the
Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone
African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA)."
Blumenthal then added that "According to knowledgeable individuals,
this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion.
French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the
current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that
influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to commit France to the
The email added: "According to these individuals, Sarkozy's plans aremission.
driven by the following issues: a. A desire to gain a greater share of
Libya oil production, b. Increase French influence in North Africa, c.
Improve his internal political situation in France, d. Provide the
French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the
world, e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi's long term
plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa."
In an earlier email, dated March 27, 2011, Blumenthal also discussed
the French interests in the conflict, citing "knowledgeable
individuals" who said that Sarkozy "is pressing to have France emerge
from this crisis as the principal foreign ally of any new government
that takes power."
So do you think it would it be easier for the Obama administration to
rally American support behind this "regime change" by explaining how
the French wanted to steal Libya's wealth and maintain French
neocolonial influence over Africa - or would Americans respond better
to propaganda themes about Gaddafi passing out Viagra to his troops so
they could rape more women while his snipers targeted innocent
children? Bingo!
Seeing No Jihadists
In selling the Libyan policy to the American people, it was also
important to downplay another part of the crisis: that Gaddafi was
right when he warned of the danger from Islamic radicals, including Al
Qaeda's North African affiliate, operating in eastern Libya.
Gaddafi's original military offensive was aimed at these groups, but
the Obama administration's propagandists twisted the issue into
Gaddafi supposedly committing "genocide" against the people of eastern
Libya, thus requiring a U.S.-led "responsibility to protect" or "R2P"
However, in the emails to Clinton, Blumenthal conveyed the actualLibya."
reality - that these supposedly innocent anti-Gaddafi rebels in the
east indeed included jihadist elements. He wrote: "Sarkozy is also
concerned about continuing reports that radical/terrorist groups such
as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC [the rebel's National Transitional
Council] and its military command.
"Accordingly, he [Sarkozy] asked [a] sociologist . who has long
established ties to Israel, Syria, and other nations in the Middle
East, to use his contacts to determine the level of influence AQIM and
other terrorist groups have inside of the NLC. Sarkozy also asked for
reports setting out a clear picture of the role of the Muslim
Brotherhood in the rebel leadership."
Blumenthal added: "Senior European security officials caution that
AQIM is watching developments in Libya, and elements of that
organization have been in touch with tribes in the southeastern part
of the country. These [European] officials are concerned that in a
post-Qaddafi Libya, France and other western European countries must
move quickly to ensure that the new government does not allow AQIM and
others to set up small, semi-autonomous local entities - or
'Caliphates' - in the oil and gas producing regions of southeastern
In other words, the danger of Islamic terror groups exploiting the"R2P"
power vacuum that the Obama administration and its Western allies were
creating inside Libya was well understood in March 2011, but the supposed
mission pressed ahead nevertheless.start.
The "R2P" advocates also turned a blind eye to evidence that black
Africans working for Gaddafi's government were being systematically
rounded up and murdered. As Blumenthal reported to Clinton, "Speaking
in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops
continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the
fighting."
These so-called "mercenaries" were contractors from black Africa where
many people viewed Gaddafi as a champion of the continent's
development, independent of the former Western imperial powers and the
harsh demands of the International Monetary Fund. While some of these
blacks were part of Gaddafi's security structure, others were involved
in construction projects.
Whatever their assignments, executing prisoners of war is a war crime
- and the image of U.S.-backed rebels singling out black Africans for
execution turns the pretense of an "R2P" mission on its head - or
perhaps all those noble humanitarian arguments were just phony from the
As Brad Hoff of the Levant Report wrote, "historians of the 2011 NATOjihadists.
war in Libya will be sure to notice a few of the truly explosive
confirmations contained in the new emails: admissions of rebel war
crimes, special ops trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of
protests, Al Qaeda embedded in the U.S. backed opposition, Western
nations jockeying for access to Libyan oil, the nefarious origins of
the absurd Viagra mass rape claim, and concern over Gaddafi's gold and
silver reserves threatening European currency."
Reality's Hard Sell
But it probably would have been a hard sell to the American people if
the U.S. government explained the dark side of the "R2P" mission -
that it involved systematic executions of blacks and rapacious Western
officials grasping for oil and gold - as well as creating a vacuum for
Instead, it worked much better to promote wild rumors about Gaddafi'sposition inside Libya.
perfidy.
It is in this way that U.S. citizens, the "We the People" who were
supposed to be the nation's sovereigns, are treated more like cattle
herded to the slaughterhouse.
Some of us did try to warn the public about these risks. For instance,
on March 25, 2011, days before Blumenthal's emails, I described the
hazard from the neocon "regime change" strategies in Libya and Syria,
writing:
"In rallying U.S. support for these rebellions, the neocons risked
repeating the mistake they made by pushing the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
They succeeded in ousting Saddam Hussein, who had long been near the
top of Israel's enemies list, but the war also removed him as a
bulwark against both Islamic extremists and Iranian influence in the
Persian Gulf. .
"By embracing these uprisings, the neocons invited unintended
consequences, including further Islamic radicalization of the region
and deepening anti-Americanism. Indeed, a rebel victory over Gaddafi
risked putting extremists from an al-Qaeda affiliate in a powerful
"The major U.S. news media aided the neocon cause by focusing on
Gaddafi's historic ties to terrorism, including the dubious charge
that he was behind the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988. There was little
attention paid to his more recent role in combating the surge in
al-Qaeda activity, especially in eastern Libya, the base of the revolt
against him." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Neocons Regroup on Libyan
War."] Though the 2011 concerns about Al Qaeda have since morphed into
worries about its spinoff, the Islamic State, the larger point remains
valid regarding Libya, which descended into the status of failed state
after Gaddafi's ouster and his brutal torture-murder on Oct. 20, 2011.
Secretary Clinton greeted the news of Gaddafi's demise with glee,
exulting, "we came, we saw, he died" and then laughed. [See
Consortiumnews.com's "Hillary Clinton's Failed Libya Doctrine."] More
than four years later, the Obama administration still struggles to
piece together some order from the chaos in Libya, where Western
governments have even abandoned their Tripoli embassies. Meanwhile,
the Islamic State and other jihadist groups continue to expand their
control of Libyan territory.
In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has hung on despite continued
efforts by the Obama administration and its regional Sunni allies to
remove him. The four years of war - waged mostly by jihadists armed
and financed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Western powers - have
killed a quarter million people and made millions homeless, now
spreading the Mideast's disorders into Europe where the refugee crisis
is dividing the European Union.
Of course, in the U.S. mainstream media, the Syrian deaths and
destruction are blamed almost entirely on Assad, much as the conflict
in Libya was blamed on Gaddafi and the U.S. invasion of Iraq was
blamed on Saddam Hussein. In the world created by U.S. propaganda, it
is always some other guy's fault.
In the Syrian case, the major decaying propaganda theme that continues
to contaminate public understanding of the crisis has been the
accusation that Assad "gassed his own people" with sarin on Aug. 21,
2013. Although independent evidence has long been pointing in the
direction of a rebel provocation, perhaps aided by Turkey, the old
rotting propaganda is routinely dug up by neocons and their liberal
interventionist sidekicks to justify why "Assad must go!" [See
Consortiumnews.com's "The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case."] In the case
of Libya, Blumenthal's emails provide a useful window into what was
actually happening behind the scenes - and what Secretary of State
Clinton knew.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can
buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here
or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can
order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to
various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes
America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
