Document:Rebel Assassins Terrorising Libyans

 article  by Steve Lendman dated 27 August 2011

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Source: SteveLendmanBlog (Link)

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Rebel Assassins Terrorizing Libyans

In his article headlined, "9/11 After A Decade: Have We Learned Anything?" Paul Craig Roberts said:

"Today Americans are unsafe, not because of terrorists and domestic extremists, but because they have lost their civil liberties and no protection from unaccountable government power."

So have millions under occupation and/or attack by US/NATO forces, terrorizing them in the name of "democracy" to "set them free."

America is a global terror state. For decades, it's menaced humanity's survival by imperial wars for wealth and power, not liberation or democratic values. All US administrations reviled them, notably Obama's, including at home.

Under him, "unaccountable government power" terrorizes globally.

It's a truism that where large energy reserves exist, America has imperial plans to control them. Libya is now ground zero. US-led NATO assassins invaded to menace, intimidate, kill, plunder, and cause out-of-control chaos, notably in Tripoli, the struggle's current epicenter.

On August 16, Michel Chossudovsky's article headlined, "The Pentagon's 'Salvador Option:' The Deployment of Death Squads in Iraq and Syria," saying:

Reports suggest the use of "thousands of Islamist 'freedom fighters,' reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA's jihad (holy war)" against Soviet Russia in Afghanistan.

Chossudovsky wrote about possible plans "to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house," train, and send them to Syria.

Thousands of similar elements are in Libya.

On August 20, independent journalist Thierry Meyssan said NATO debarked large numbers of jihadi forces with heavy weapons on Tripoli's coast. Special forces led them. Violence and mass killing followed. It still rages, slaughtering hundreds, perhaps thousands, and wounding many more.

On August 26, London Independent writers Kim Sengupta and Portia Walker headlined, "Bodies pile up as search for Gaddafi intensifies," saying:

"Fierce fighting and wild rumors (spread) as hunt gathers pace." So far, there's "no sign of an end to the conflict as" battles rage.

On August 26, London Guardian writer Simon Jenkins headlined, "Libya is not an advertisement for intervention," saying:

"Several claims....made about NATO's involvement (have) little basis in reality," including:

• Preventing a Benghazi massacre. It "was NATO propaganda."

In fact, mass killing only began when NATO arrived and hasn't stopped.

• Replacing Gaddafi to protect civilians and install a more democratic regime.

NATO plans occupation and puppet leaders taking orders from Washington, as well as plundering Libya for profit.

• "(N)o foreign troops on the ground" will be used.

"This NATO pledge was mendacious....British (and other Western) ground troops were extensively deployed in Libya," arriving before conflict began last winter.

• "Britain was not taking sides in a foreign civil war."

In fact, Washington, Britain, and other NATO countries partnered to oust Gaddafi. Insurgents, supported by air power, were recruited to do it. Western interests "most emphatically decided the fate of the Libyan people. (They) brought anarchy in the place of order....(They can't) disown the consequences."

• From the start, Western leaders knew if they "toppled Gaddafi (they) would own the place. It was no good saying they "learn(ed) from Iraq. The lesson of Iraq was, don't do it in the first place."

Libya, in fact, is replicating it. NATO's Operation Mermaid Dawn hoped to end it in Tripoli. "Mermaid" is Tripoli's nickname. On August 20, it was launched from Sarim Street's Ben Nabi mosque after Iftar, the breaking Ramadan's fast.

Insurgents used mosque loud speakers to broadcast chants to Tripoli residents. NATO carpet bombing and strafing preceded and accompanied it to clear their way to advance unimpeded after initial loyalist counterattacks.

Activated sleeper cells around the city joined the fighting. Weapons were shipped in weeks in advance. Text messages urged residents to join insurgents. Battles raged. They still do. Likely protracted conflict will cause thousands of deaths and injuries, as well as destruction across Tripoli and other parts of Libya, besides the horrendous past six months' toll.

The Big Lie accompanies the campaign, including a Potemkin village replica of Tripoli's Green Square and Gaddafi compound in Doha, Qatar.

It was used to create fabricated scenes of euphoria, aired by Al Jazeera, an imperial co-conspirator. In fact, it was an elaborate hoax to convince residents Tripoli was in rebel hands. Perhaps seizure of Gaddafi's compound was also exaggerated, reminiscent of Orson Welles' famous 1938 War of the Worlds radio drama.

The hoax heard around the world sounded real enough to make millions think aliens had landed. Angry about public gullibility, Welles reportedly said, "If they'll believe everything, I'm going to give them something (really) unbelievable to believe."

Misinformation and the art of surprise work well enough to convince people of most anything. It's especially effective tactically in wars. The jury is out on if it'll work this time, given strong loyalist opposition to NATO occupation.

All along, the pretext used to intervene was to "protect civilians and civilian populated areas from threat of attack," as stipulated under the General Assembly's 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, adopting the responsibility to protect (RtoP).

A previous article explained paragraph 138, stating each nation must "protect (its) population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity."

Paragraph 139 delegates responsibility to the UN "to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from" these crimes.

Military force isn't authorized, and the UN Charter prohibits it for humanitarian interventions. As a result, justifying it under RtoP is illegal. Doing so amounts to committing war crimes to prevent them.

The UN Charter's Chapter VI calls for peaceful conflict resolutions. If they fail, Chapter VII authorizes the Security Council to impose boycotts, embargoes, blockades and severance of diplomatic ties - not war.

As a result, Washington's led NATO intervention is naked aggression, supplemented by paramilitary assassins, terrorizing Tripoli residents and other Libyans they attacked, murdering Gaddafi loyalists.

After entering Tripoli, AP and Reuters reported massacres of his supporters near his compound, AP saying:

"The bodies are scattered around a grassy square next to (Gaddafi's) Bab al-Aziziya (compound). Prone on grassy lots as if napping, (they're) sprawled in tents. Some have had their wrists bound by plastic ties. The identity of the dead are unclear but they are in all likelihood activists that set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with (Gaddafi) outside his compound in defiance of the NATO bombings."

AP noted "the disturbing specter of mass killings of noncombatants, detainees and the wounded." Some were "shot in the head, with their hands tied behind their backs. A body in a doctor's green hospital gown was found in the canal. The bodies were bloated."

Reuters reported 30 bodies "riddled with bullets....Five of the dead were at a field hospital nearby, with one in an ambulance strapped to a gurney with an intravenous drip still in his arm." Two other bodies "were charred beyond recognition."

The London Telegraph interviewed a surgeon saying hundreds were "coming in within the first few hours (of fighting). It was like a vision from hell. Missile injuries were the worst. The damage they do to the human body is shocking to see, even for someone like me who is used to dealing with injuries."

He said most casualties were civilians. Tripoli's three main hospitals are full of them. Unable to handle the volume, many suffer in agony or die untreated. Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) warned of a medical catastrophe. Already there's a human one wrought by NATO and their rebel assassins on the pretext of humanitarian intervention.

What's involved, of course, is planned colonization, occupation and plunder of Libya's wealth and natural resources, including its Great Man-Made River (GMMR). Gaddafi rightfully called it the "Eighth Wonder of the World," consisting of the largest global underground network of pipes and aqueducts, distributing water from an ocean-sized aquifer.

Along with free education, healthcare, housing assistance and other social benefits, Gaddafi supplied it to Libyans. NATO wants it privatized to make it costly or unaffordable henceforth, along with charging for everything formerly gotten free.

The opening comments of a previous article bear repeating, saying:

The US/UK/French-led war on Libya will be remembered as one of history's greatest crimes. It violates the letter and spirit of international law and America's Constitution.

The Nuremberg Tribunal's Chief Justice Robert Jackson called naked aggression "the supreme international crime against peace....so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate (its) being ignored, because it cannot survive....being repeated."

Post-WW II, it got worse, highlighted by what Washington, its NATO partners, and rebel assassins are doing across Libya. At the same time, they scandalously avoid calling it war, when, in fact, it's that and more in the worst sense.

Make no mistake. For months, Libyans have been slaughtered and terrorized by vicious war criminals headquartered in Washington, London and Paris.

Unaccountable, they plan more conflicts across the region for total dominance at the expense of thousands more lost lives, as well as unspeakable human misery. It doesn't get any worse than that.

A Final Comment

A morning email alert said the following:

"Although journalists reporting from the Rixos Al Nasr Hotel in Tripoli were relocated to the Corinthia Hotel, also in Tripoli, on Wednesday August 24, in an effort to increase their safety, independent journalist and Canadian citizen Mahdi Nazamroaya continues to express grave concerns for his life. Mr. Nazemroaya told friends on Thursday that his safety was now even more at risk with armed groups entering the Corinthia hotel. Mr. Nazemroaya is unable to leave the hotel.

The planned departure of a boat which would have brought journalists and migrants outside of Libya was delayed and the transfer of journalists to the boat in all safety remains uncertain.

The Canadian Government has yet to act to ensure that Mr. Nazemroaya is repatriated to his home country despite having ties with the Hongarian embassy in Tripoli. Friends and family continue to demand that the government take concrete action to ensure that Mr. Nazemroaya is escorted back to safety.

Mr. Nazemroaya is a recent graduate of the University of Ottawa where he also held a research assistant position."

For further information:
Mireille Gervais
Director, Student Appeal Centre, Student Federation of the University of Ottawa

The lives of other trapped independent journalists are also at risk, including Lizzie Phelan, Franklin Lamb, Thierry Meyssan, Mathieu and Julien Ozanon Teil, because they're unprotected at the rebel-held Corinthia Hotel.

As a result, assuring their safe passage out of Libya is urgent. So far, a chartered ship can't dock because of fighting. The longer it's delayed, the greater the risk. Further updates will follow.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net