NATO is Slaughtering Civilians Not Saving them in Tripoli Now

international | anti-war / imperialism | feature Wednesday August 24, 2011 08:00 by T

NATO carrying out imperial ambitions of France, UK and US.

Within days of the UN resolution for the Libyan no-fly zone a few months back, it has been known that this was purely a very thin cover for European and US ambitions of regime change to place a better puppet in power and to grab the billions in oil revenues that Libyan had in the bank. These revenues have already been seized.

The claim that NATO were bombing Libyan to save civilians was always a bit like 'fucking for virginity' and was extremely suspect coming from an organisation that was busy killing and maiming people in Afghanistan alongside the US.

In the past few weeks the mainstream pro-repressive pro-murder press has been giving a massive propanganda boost to the so called rebels. These ragbag assertment of cut-throats and extremists and even Al Qaeda jihad forces who had very little support were supported by thousands of continuous bombing raids by NATO and now last night NATO were instrumental in bombing Tripoli and straffing (heavy calibar gunships) civilians from helicopters. Crimes against humanity have been and are being committed by NATO and the terrorists that they have aided and abetted over the past few months as they terrorize the people of Libya, maim and murder them.

Tripoli Burning

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime. ....Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of "the state of Islam" in the country.

Related Links: NATO Bombs Kill 85 Civilians | Leak of a 70 page Criminal NATO Plan to Occupy Libya by Jason Ditz and here too | Libyan Deaths, Media Silence by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) The Old Imperialist Project to Divide Libya in Three has been Executed by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya | Time to End Nato's War in Libya by Dennis Kucinich | Who Will Save Libya From Its Western Saviours by Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone | Charges mount of NATO war crimes in Libya | NATO’s terror bombing of Libya | The war in Libya and the crisis of the European Union -Part 1 Part 3 | Fierce fighting continues in Tripoli | For dictators, Britain does red carpet or carpet-bombing | Washington tried to snatch $1.5 billion to pay its NTC employees | Journalists who engage in war propaganda must be held accountable | NATO’s Puppet Regime in Libya Falls Apart (Aug 15th) | The CIA’s Fake “Arab Spring” Becoming A Long, Hot Summer Of War | Al Qaeda: Pawns of CIA Insurrection from Libya to Yemen | Gaddafi under siege: Two CIA-backed groups, an al-Qaeda-linked LIFG on top of power stakes

Podcasts/Video Libyan Rebel Supreme Commander Younis, Two Colonels Murdered by al Qaeda Faction / Libyan rebel rivalry weakens NATO -Interview of W. Tarpley in July | 'NATO starving civilians in Libya -Jul 8th | Report on Libya -interview on Guns and Butter show (June 29th) -Tarpley | Inteview of Matthew Rothschild on article: Stop the Bombing of Libya | Inteview of Jason Ditz on his article: Italian Foreign Minister’s call for an end to the Libya War after NATO airstrikes killed many civilians

Here is a report last night from Thierry Meyssan who is in Tripoli.

Tripoli, Libya, Aug. 22, 2011, 1 AM CET– On Saturday evening, at 8pm, when the hour of Iftar marked the breaking of the Ramadan fast, the NATO command launched its “Operation Siren” against Libya.

The Sirens were the loudspeakers of the mosques, which were used to launch Al Qaeda’s call to revolt against the Qaddafi government. Immediately the sleeper cells of the Benghazi rebels went into action. These were small groups with great mobility, which carried out multiple attacks. The overnight fighting caused 350 deaths and 3,000 wounded.

The situation calmed somewhat on Sunday during the course of the day.

Then, a NATO warship sailed up and anchored just off the shore at Tripoli, delivering heavy weapons and debarking Al Qaeda jihadi forces, which were led by NATO officers.

Fighting started again during the night. There were intense firefights. NATO drones and aircraft kept bombing in all directions. NATO helicopters strafed civilians in the streets with machine guns to open the way for the jihadis.

In the evening, a motorcade of official cars carrying top government figures came under attack. The convoy fled to the Hotel Rixos, where the foreign press is based. NATO did not dare to bomb the hotel because they wanted to avoid killing the journalists. Nevertheless the hotel, which is where I am staying, is now under heavy fire.

At 11:30pm, the Health Minister had to announce that the hospitals were full to overflowing. On Sunday evening, there had been 1300 additional dead and 5,000 wounded.

NATO had been charged by the UN Security Council with protecting civilians in Libya. In reality, France and Great Britain have just re-started their colonial massacres.

At 1am, Khamis Qaddafi came to the Rixos Hotel personally to deliver weapons for the defense of the hotel. He then left. There is now heavy fighting all around the hotel.

-Thierry Meyssan

But to put this in some context in terms of the leadup to this and going back to the start, it seems this uprising was planned and executed from the start largely by France and the UK with plenty of help from the US.

Now some people will read this as article as support for Gadaffi and since he is bad then NATO must be good and it is best then to ignore the awful reality on the ground. As usual things are more nuanced than that and complex on the ground. Sure Gadaffi is bad but so are all the other dictators. But in that bad situation there were plenty of positives but negatives for the West. First Libya had rejected the neoliberal model (bad for Capitalist) and had one of the highest standards of living for people in Africa because Health and Education were free and there were generous other social services. This is very bad for Capitalism and sets a bad example because it raises peoples expectations. What was bad for the Libya people was indeed the lack of freedoms but it wasn't remotely as bad as Saudi Arabia, Baharain, Yemen and other countries is politically. Ah but people will say these regimes are friends of the West or at least some of them and some of them have generous welfare programs for their citizens. But that is exactly the point just made for Libya except you don't lose your hand or head for like the way people do in Saudi.

But moving on, the rebels never really had the local support claimed. The Western press though has gone all out to make out the support was far greater than it is. The rebels are derived from the spontaneous uprising of citizens either and they are certainly not in any way remotely liberal or freedom loving. Whatever happens now in Libya and it will be possibly civilian war and remember France, UK and US will have blood on their hands for this, if the new regime gets in power they will strip the country bare, privatise the oiland all the other services and completely impoverish the people. Already a huge of amount of basic infrastructure has been bombed to smithereens. So who is going to rebuild their water supply and sewage systems? Who is going to pay for them. Answer is nobody. Libya is going to look pretty much like Iraq.

Another point we should stop to ask is this? Have NATO missiles and the heavy calibar gunship helicopters rounds used depleted uranium (DU). This stuff is deadly and perists in the environment indefinitely contaminating everything in its wake with the radioactive dust. DU has been used widely in Iraq and Afghanistan and has led to a massive increase in cancers, birth defects and numerous other chronic and debiliting illnesses. Is the West going to provide for the medical care of these people now that they appear to have liberated them. Answer No. So lets return to why NATO was bombing Libya? Apparently to save civilians. Net result is a threatened civil war, thousands dead, even more seriously injured, critical sanity infrastructure destroyed and posssible widespread contamination.

It is quite ironic and rightly so how we were all shocked and horrified when 80+ people were shot dead in Norway. The person pulling the trigger was quite clearly a terrorist. Yet where is this same press and moral outrage when just a few weeks ago, NATO planes killed 80+ civilians in Libya on Aug 10 near the village of Zlitan. And where is it now that they have bombed a pathway to the capital Tripoli for these so-called rebels and the 1000s killed in the last few days?

So in the days ahead take note how the European powers and US media will heavily promote the image of liberation and joy and all disenting views will be sidelined and will not appear but as reported (see links below), there is a huge section of the population that is against these rebels because they know full well that they are proxies for the West and we will see a conflict that will possibly go on for years.

Back in July there was a massive show of support for the Gadaffi because the people realized the French/UK/US sponsored rebels will be a lot worse: This article covers that.

The mainstream media has been hiding the facts and the realities on the ground in Libya. The Libyan people have been gathering in massive rallies across Libya. These rallies demonstrate the widespread support of the Libyan people for Colonel Qaddafi and their opposition of the Libyan people to NATO and the Benghazi-based Transitional Council.

Friday of July 1, 2011 like many other Fridays has seen huge rallies in Tripoli’s Green Square. It is very hard to get an accurate number of the mass of people that have attended these rallies. Estimates have placed the size of the July 1st rally in Green Square at one million people or more. In Libya it is said that the rally reached about 1.7 million people. The rallies have been taking place almost weekly in Tripoli and other Libyan cities, including Sabha on July 8, 2011. Public opinion in North America and Western Europe has been misinformed. People in Western Europe and North America are not even aware that these mass rallies have taken place. These massive rallies express the Libyan people’s patriotism and their firm opposition to NATO’s war of aggression on Libya. Full text at Green Square: Exposing the Mainstream Media in Libya by Mahdi Darius

So what does this tell us? It tells us France/UK/US (NATO) have no right to be there. They have no right to be murdering people. They have no right to seize the oil fields via the rebels as their proxies. They have no right to seize Libya state money. It also tells us without the massive NATO bombing the rebels would have got nowhere. It also tells us there will be a counter offensive in Tripoli and NATO will terrorize the population by bombing them until there is nothing left so that their rebels can then win.

Meanhwhile back in March: LIBYA: ALL ABOUT OIL, OR ALL ABOUT BANKING?

Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank – this before they even had a government. Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:

I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.

Futher Updates and News Aug 27th: Racist murdering of Blacks by Rebels in Libya:
Rebels settle scores in Libyan capital
Rebels rounding up anyone who is black and assuming they are mercenaries and executing them. See also Libya: Stop Arbitrary Arrests of Black Africans

Aug 31st: Guns & Butter inteview of Mohamed Hassan about how US/NATO started the civil war, are killing people to stir up hate and tear the country apart, that the aims for the US govt are for part of plan to control and pillage Africa.... and lots more...



Sept 2nd: Former links between Gaddafi and MI5 and CIA:
MI5 spied on Libyan torture victims, documents reveal
MI5 also agreed to trade information with Libyan spymasters on 50 British-based Libyans judged to be a threat to Gaddafi's regime.
The disclosures come from secret intelligence documents left lying around in the ruins of the British embassy in Tripoli for anyone to find.
They include an MI5 paper marked “UK/Libya Eyes Only Secret", which shows that the service provided Gaddafi's spies with a trove of intelligence about Libyan dissidents in London, Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester...... See above link for remainder of story.

Additional Links (Post Attack)
Libya and the Shameless Rewriting of History
Meet Professor Juan Cole, Consultant to the CIA

Sept 7th: Former U.S. Congressman Walter Fauntroy -First hand accounts of attrocity by NATO troops
Former U.S. Congressman Walter Fauntroy, who recently returned from a self-sanctioned peace mission to Libya, said he went into hiding for about a month in Libya after witnessing horrifying events in Libya's bloody civil war -- a war that Fauntroy claims is backed by European forces........In an interview inside his Northwest D.C. home last week, the noted civil rights leader, told the Afro that he watched French and Danish troops storm small villages late at night beheading, maiming and killing rebels and loyalists to show them who was in control. ...."Contrary to what is being reported in the press, from what I heard and observed, more than 90 percent of the Libyan people love Gaddafi," Fauntroy said. "We believe the true mission of the attacks on Gaddafi is to prevent all efforts by African leaders to stop the recolonization of Africa."

Sept 10th:Berlusconi says Libyans love Qaddafi: as Italians protest against NATO
"This has nothing to do with a popular uprising. The Libyan people love Gaddafi, as I was able to see when I went to Libya", Berlusconi said on Friday during a party meeting in Rome.
He said he suspects there was a plot against Gaddafi.
"Powerful people decided to give life to a new era by trying to oust Gaddafi," Berlusconi said, according to Italian news agency ANSA. In July Berlusconi already said he was against NATO intervention in Libya but "had to go along with it", therewith exposing the fragility of the alliance trying to murder Gaddafi.

Sept 19th:NATO Bombs kill 354 people. See As Libyan “rebel” offensive stalls, NATO bombs kill hundreds
Moussa Ibrahim, an official of the Gaddafi regime, released a statement yesterday saying that 354 people had been killed and 700 injured when a NATO air strike in Sirte hit the city’s main hotel and a nearby apartment block. He said an additional 89 people were still missing.


Sept 29th: Mass killing and humanitarian disaster in NATO siege of Sirte
Refugees from the Libyan coastal city of Sirte report that thousands have died as a result of relentless NATO bombardment and shelling by the the Western-backed “rebels.”