Neo-Colonialism, Subversion in Africa and Global Conflict by Christof-Lehmann
January 8, 2012 | Author: Hanif
The withdrawal of the old colonial powers from Africa, in the context of a developing cold war, (1), a developing Pan-African Nationalism (2), and the rising cost of maintaining a colonial administration system, during the nineteen-hundred and sixties left the African nations in a euphoric state of independence.
Tripoli, 11/4/11 In most cases this euphoria was soon to be substituted by chocking massacres and conflict, coup d´etats unrest and destabilization. The old colonial rulers had returned with a vengeance. Over fifty years later, most African nations are, in spite of the richness of their resources and productivity of their population, still catastrophically under developed, impoverished, endebbed, plagued by conflict, unrest and instability due to the return of the colonial powers influence. Those African nations who failed to comply with their returning rulers were and are mercilessly attacked. Libya and the Ivory Coast are examples for the new colonizations subversive influence, and a warning for African leaders to face the lion in solidarity or be devoured one by one.
All conflicts in post-colonial African wars as well as internal unrest have the same common elements. The involvement of foreign nations, the instrumentalization of local elements, and the goal to control resources, economy, and geopolitically as well as strategically significant locations. Western Medias narrative of French, British, and US-American involvement in Africa is commonly manufacturing popular consent by eliciting a fabled advocacy for stability, human rights, and democracy for African countries; nothing could be farther from the truth. Stability, human rights and democracy are but the pretext for aggressive neo-colonial subversion, invasion, long-term military presence and control. This subversion and invasion has acquired an additional dimension after China began to invest massively on the African continent. While the traditional colonial powers and the USA maintained the traditional role of the supremacist usurper, China is, though resource, trade and profit oriented, taking an approach of joint ventures and contribution to the development of African Nations infrastructure (3). After all, the Chino-African model of free market enterprise and joint venture can not function if African nations don´t develop to such degree that they can import consumer goods that are manufactured in China. Thus, since China began investing interests in Africa, the traditional colonial powers and the USA´s subversions and aggressions began being directed against primarily China, and secondarily Russia, which is recently re-discovering it´s strength as a global power, after a period of restructuring and re-consolidation after the collapse of the USSR (4).
The neo-colonial model of subversion is based on directing and co-opting local instruments, such as opposition parties, human rights organizations, an ongoing internal low intensity conflict, as well as expatriate communities, expatriates sponsored and with ties to i.e. the National Endowment for Democracy, and other Institutes, NGO´s and Organizations that are notorical for their involvement in subversions (5). These systems interface with both civilian and military intelligence services and special operations forces, in a logical, systematic approach that invariably has the same outcome; the subversion of the country, and the installation of a controlled, friendly, or proxy government. Precisely the same methodology is explained in an analysis of the subversion of Syria that began with the “Arab Spring” in 2011 (6). A successful subversion without the co-conspiracy of local elements is neither viable nor desirable. A U.S. Training Manual for Unconventional Warfare is breaking such terms as feasibility for subversion down into operational details (7). The co-opting of local opposition in African subversions has been an invariable part of neo-colonial strategy since day one of neo-colonialism, when the Congolese Government and Patrice Lumumba were overthrown by creating and aggravating internal tensions, and the financial, as well as covert military support of an armed insurgency with it´s basis in a local militia (8). The function of any of these subversions is invariably the controlling of resources and wealth while keeping the African Nations impoverished and endebbed, and since the beginning of the rapid development of China´s economy, the geopolitical as well as economical warfare on Russia and China.
The use of local instruments in subversions has largely been based on either tribal or religious aspects. A prime example of this strategy is Angola. After the Socialist MPLA, backed by Cuba and the USSR came to power in Angola, the Western Block, read NATO countries, began building and supporting two alternative movements, the NFLA in Northern, and UNITA in Southern Angola. Both the NFLA and UNITA were based on the same charter, but were divided by tribal affiliation (9). In the case of Afghanistan, the USA and NATO countries heavily supported what was then called “Mujahedeen”, and a CIA-run network of Arab mercenaries, which came to become known as Al-Qaeda (10). The same network of mainly Arab and Afghan mercenaries was used by NATO in the war on Serbia, and the conquering of Kosovo (11), and the same network has been used against Libya by Western Intelligence Services for decades, and it is currently delivering the core of the so called “rebels” in Libya (12). How NATO is using this “network” or Al Qaeda, depending on what function it is supposed to fulfill in a given operation, as respectively purported enemy or ally is elicited by a West Point Study (13), that shows that the same Al Qaeda Terrorist Network in Bengazi and Derna, Libya, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, delivered the greatest per capita contribution of foreign fighters against the USA in Iraq, while the same LIFG is now providing the core around which among other, CIA imported Afghan Fighters (14) are installed in the theater of operations in the occupation of Libya.
At the onset of what is generally termed “The Arab Spring” in Libya, US-President Barak Obama signed an order, designating CIA operatives to the eastern Libyan cities Derna and Bengazi, in preparation of the final stages of the covert, and the beginning stages of the overt subversion of the Libyan Government (15) . Publicly, Obama sent the CIA operatives to “analyze” the rebel forces. This analysis however, had been done in the West Point Study (ibid.) long before, and knowing about how intelligence operations are performed, was part of the step by step strategy for subversion, explained in the TC18-01 Unconventional Warfare manual (ibid.). The military leader of the Al Qaeda fraction Libyan Islamic Fighting group was re labeled “rebels” and not long time after into the Tripoli Military Counsel (16). Meanwhile, the Corporate Western Media villanized and positioned Muammar Ghadafi and the Libyan Government as dictatorial villains, that indiscriminately bombed “peaceful protesters” while it´s Al Qaeda and Associated Army of Mercenaries, and the political proxies Mahmud Jibril, Jalil, and a cohort of “anonymous “politicians” of the Transitional National Counsel were made into the heroes of the Libyan Revolution. The manufacturing of consent by media is one invariable element of warfare. The manufacturing of a quasi legitimate new government is an invariable element of neo-colonial strategy, as it can be observed on the example of the manufacturing of the National Counsel of Syria, which is in NATO´s sights too (17). The main obstacle for the advance of neo-colonialism on the African Continent has never been Al Qaeda, but Muammar Ghadafi, the Libyan Government, as well as Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
In Ivory Coast, the situation was not unlike the one in Libya. Ivory Coast held a Presidential Election, with an apparently very close outcome. In Western Corporate Media all we hear is, that the Electoral Commission of Ivory Coast had declared Outara the winner of the elections. What Western Media failed to report was, that there had been wide spread election fraud, that the President of Ivory Coast and his party took the election results to the supreme court, and that the supreme court declared Laurent Gbagbo the winner of the election and thus Laurent Gbagbo to be the lawful President Elect of Ivory Coast. What was reported, and emphatically reported, was that “security forces” clamp down on “peaceful protesters”, and then, that “Outara´s Army” is cornering Gbagbo “in his bunker”(18) . This news Coverage and manufacturing of Consent is only possible in populations that are inherently racist and traditional or neo-colonial powers (19). The important question is, where did Outara, who just claimed to have won the election, gotten an “Army” from. Unless a population is so used to condescending racism and colonialist thinking, one would immediately say, but the electoral commission is not the one to approve of election results, it´s the Supreme Court. Not so, if the audience is inherently racist, and inherently thinking in a way typical for colonial powers; condescending towards the wild and uncivilized African (ibid.). To illustrate the point on a Western Example. When George Bush and Al Gore had the closest ever election held in the United States of America (20), who certified the election? The Supreme Court (21). Even though many Americans felt utterly disenfranchised, the population respected the Supreme Court. Can you for one moment imagine that “Al Gore cornered Bush in his bunker, with Al Gore´s Army, neglecting the Supreme Court, because an Electoral Commission had pronounced him the winner ? “ Where would Al Gore have gotten an Army from anyways. What happened in Ivory Coast was, that France and the United States backed Outara at neglecting the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Counsel of Ivory Coast because the Supreme Court decided in favor of Laurent Gbagbo and not the Proxy President of Noe-Colonialism in Africa.
Where did Outara get an Army from? Outara´s “Army” consisted of a collection of “rebel forces” or French backed insurgents from the Northern part of Ivory Coast, who had been convinced by the French DGSE (22) and old colonial power structures, inherent in among other French Freemasonry in Africa, to side with Outara, against Laurent Gbagbo (23). Besides that, 2.500 French soldiers (24), plus U.N. Soldiers (25) were present, taking actively part in the ousting of Laurent Gbagbo, and the legitimate government of Ivory Coast. That is where Outara got “His Army” from. Insurgents, French and U.N. Troops were Outara´s Army. (26) An army that murdered thousands of Ivory Coast´s citizens in the neo-colonial post-modern coup d´etat. Justice on Laurent Gbagbo is then served at the United Nation´s ICC making the U.N., France and the USA the judge, the jury, and the executioner.(27)
So “why” had France to remove Gbagbo from Office.
The question that needs to be answered, before it is possible to discern why the events in Ivory Coast and Libya as they do is “why” did the USA and France want Laurent Gbagbo and Ghadafi removed from political office. The unrests, the engineering of dissent, the alliances with armed militia, politicians and oligarchs are nothing but “functions” and “instruments”. It is comparable with a script for a play in the world political theater; the script is written, the acts planned, long before the cast of actors is chosen. The discourse of political reporting, and the manufacturing of opinion discuss the cast, seldom the play writer, almost never the play writers motivation, and that is one of the most critical functions of media with respect to social engineering. It is absolutely necessary to have an understanding of this background to understand the subversions in Ivory Coast and Libya. After World War II the European Economies were scrambling to reconstitute. So was that of France, which devised long term plans for economical recovery in several phases. The traditional form of colonial control by military might and absolute political control had, in spite of the richness of African resources, become too costly, to cumbersome, and in the light of the depletion of military force due to two major conflicts, become impossible. What is also noteworthy is, that the post-war period also is the period where the development of media and Public Relations significantly began substituting police and military force as instruments for social control (28).
Laurent Gbagbo had discussions with other visionary African leaders who not only knew that the new-colonization of Africa was keeping African nations impoverished and virtually enslaved, it´s citizens being the back bone of new colonial powers economy, but who had vision, courage, and integrity in resisting the usurpers of Europe, the USA, and globalized Corporate Influences. Most prominently, Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, and Muammar al-Ghadafi, honorary leader of the Libyan Revolution. One of the main reasons why Laurent Gbagbo had to be replaced by France, and replaced fast, was that Gbagbo was not only seriously working towards creating Ivory Coasts own currency, that would be independent on France, but that he, like Robert Mugabe and Muammar Ghadafi, actively lobbied and encouraged other African nations in the CFA region to follow suit (29). The main reason why France “never would allow this to happen” in one of it´s old colonies is, that the CFA is one of the main sources of income for the French economy. Not only does France control the value of the CFA, and thus how much it earns on trade with CFA nations, not only does France cooperate with the IMF on regular devaluations of the CFA (30), France is printing the money for and exerts absolute control over the eight African countries economy.
More over, the monetary policy of France in governing the eight nations economy is in fact operated by the French Treasury, without any reference to the central fiscal authorities of any of these eight nations. Under the terms of the CFA Agreement, it is France that is unilaterally setting up these African nations Central Banks, and each of the eight countries is obliged to keep at least 65 % of it´s foreign exchange reserves in an “operations account” held at the French Treasury, as well as another 20% to cover financial liabilities (31). In other words, 85 % of all foreign exchange reserves of Ivory Coast, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bisau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo are 100 % under control of the French Treasury, with France in a position to devalue and manipulate these countries economy to it´s own advantage. The CFA was created to keep African nations impoverished, to maintain the plunder of their resources and wealth, while feeding the French and European Economy (32). The social unrest that follows in the wake of new devaluations (33), is then hard handedly oppressed by those “African Vice Roy´s” that are nepotist enough to co-operate with France as agents of their own nations and peoples enslavement. Laurent Gbagbo opposed the colonial master because Laurent Gbagbo was working for the benefit of his people and Ivory Coast; That is why Laurent Gbagbo had to be removed.
So why did the Sun Kings of Europe and the USA hate Ghadafi.
Colonialism in Africa has changed significantly since the USA entered African Politics after world war two, and very significantly, with the consolidation of the European Union. While France has particular national interests in the CFA region, most of Southern Europe’s states are working towards an expansion of the European Market to the Mediterranean Basin, and a new colonization by means of economic control and military presence in Northern Africa. Seldom mentioned in the corporate media, the Royal Family of Morocco is a stern supporter of this policy. Cooperation on multiple areas, such as the control of the Mediterranean Basin States Social Economy (34) have been implemented for years.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy made it his personal ambition to achieve what even Napolean did not , a colonization of the entire Northern and Western African Continent. In 2008 France and the European Union had been so far in their preparations, that the only remaining obstacle for it´s North African Colonial Ambitions was Libya, and Libya outright rejected to play into the hands of the want to be colonialists. When asked for his opinion about the Mediterranean Basin alliance, Muammar Ghadafi said: “If Europe wants co-operation, it should go through Cairo and Adis Abeba”. (35) In 2008, President Sarkozy wanted to make the Mediterranean Alliance his contribution to the European Union, and during the six months of the French E.U. Presidency (ibid.) French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner did not only convey Sarkozy´s “disappointment”, but clearly indicated that Libya and Ghadafi had become “the” obstacle for further colonial expansion in Northern Africa, when he stated that “ Colonel Ghadafi is not in agreement with this vision. Neither was he in agreement with the Barcelona process which we intend to support and pursue”(ibid.).
The reason why Libya opposed the Mediterranean Alliance was, that it would have split, rather than united African Nations. Rather than establishing one more “zone” like the CFA Region in Northern Africa, Ghadafi and Libya were lobbying the African Union to abandon the CFA treaties with France, and to establish a Pan-African, gold backed currency, which would end the usury, the robbery of African nations ressources, and the enslavement of an entire continents population. The Libyan arguments were persuasive. Libya had the highest per capita GDP, the highest standard of living, social services, wages, job security, education program, litteracy rate, and countless other “firsts” among African Nations. After Ghadafi´s and Libya´s out right rejection of the Mediterranean Alliance (ibid.) and success at lobbying for a Pan-African currency, with among other Laurent Gbagbo from Ivory Coast meant, that the USA and Europe had only one option left, to topple the Libyan Government by any means necessary.
The Myth of an African Union.
To understand the full range of the problem Libya created, it is necessary what the African Union (AU) is. The African Union was established in 2002 by member states of the former Organization of African Unity (OAU). The OAU was established in 1963 with the function to facilitate African Nations transition to independence, to counter all forms of colonialism, and protect the independence and national integrity of African Nations (36). The transition from the OAU to the African Union in 2002 was nothing else but the European Union´s co-opting the only forum that actively lobbied against neo-colonialism, and substitute it with an African Union, that is modeled over the European Union (37). The African Union is, but the new colonial administration of a now united Europe.
With approximately one third of the entire budget of the African Union paid for by the European Union, as alms to Africa, taken from the money that is usurped from Africa, the African Union is but the European Union´s Colonial Administration. An African Court of Justice (38) modeled over the ICC, an African Investment Bank, an African Development Bank, and an African Central Bank, managed by Europe, for Europe and the USA (39), and global Finance Capital (40). The African Union did not “cower in the light of pressure from the E.U” (41) as some interpreted it´s support of UNSC Resolution 1973 (42), the African Union strictly spoken functioned exactly as it was designed to do; as an instrument for the new colonization of Africa. Just like Laurent Gbagbo, who had to be removed because he wanted Ivory Coast to have it´s own currency or a Pan-African Currency under African Control rather than that of the French National Bank, Muammar Ghadafi had to be removed, because he was the one obstacle that prevented the establishment of the Mediterranean Alliance, and because his ideas about a Pan-African Gold Dinar was seriously considered by many African leaders, who do not dare to speak of it over their breath. That is “why” Ghadafi had to be removed.
The Spiral towards a Global Conflict.
Ivory Coast and the removal of incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo from office; the criminal war against Libya and the ousting of the legitimate Libyan Government, the aggressive expansion of the US African Command, the ongoing subversion of Syria, the manufacturing of war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Sudan, Ossetia; the manufacturing of insurgencies in Chechnya, Yemen, among other, and countless Color Revolutions and Arab Spring Coup d´etat have only been possible for two reasons. The fact that Russia was severely destabilized after the collapse of the USSR, and under the Presidency of Boris Yeltsin, who strip sold Russian Assets to Global Oligarchs, and which had to find it´s footing as a global power. The fact that the transformation of the Chinese economy was prioritized higher by China than the defense of the nations in Africa, that provide much of the resources that drive the Chinese economy.
Already at the International Security Conference in Munich, 2007, then President of The Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin used the strongest possible words of diplomatic parleur to warn the United States of America, saying that it´s aggressive expansionism has brought the world closer to a third world war than it has ever been before (43). After the absolutely criminal and shameless abuse of the United Nations Security Counsel Resolution 1973 and the attempt by NATO countries to abuse the UN for a similar resolution on Syria, both China and Russia responded with a veto (44). The global danger how ever, is not the fact of the veto, but the fact that the world today, with a United Nations that has utterly been co-opted by NATO countries (45), has no forum for a peaceful resolution of what increasingly seems to develop into a global war. This is in deed an unprecedented crisis, that demands unprecedented leadership, courage, and integrity.
REFERENCES:
(1) Cold War https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cold_War
(2) Pan-African Nationalism http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo3645795.html
(3) The Guardian, China sais the Booming Trade with Africa is Transforming the Continent. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/23/china-africa-trade-record-transform
(4) NATO`s War on Libya is Directed Against China http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/natos-war-on-libya-is-directed-against-china/
(5) Washington is conquering Africa, using France, Human Rights, Terrorism, and The National Endowment for Democracy. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/washington-is-conquering-africa-using-france-human-rights-terrorism-and-the-national-endowment-for-democracy/
(6) The National Counsel of Syria and U.S. Unconventional Warfare. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/the-national-counsel-of-syria-and-u-s-unconventional-warfare/
(7) TC 18-01 Special Forces and Unconventional Warfare. http://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-UW.pdf
(8) New Data on Murder of Lumumba. http://www.africawithin.com/lumumba/murder_of_lumumba.htm
(9) Frontline Vol 2. Issue 8. December 2008, How Africa Won Freedom. http://www.redflag.org.uk/frontline/dec08/africa.html
(10) Al Qaeda: The Database http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24738
(11) German Intelligence and CIA supported Al Qaeda Terrorists in Yugoslavia. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BEH502A.html
(12) Abdelhakim Belhadj, The Mask behind the Many Men. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/abdelhakim-belhadj-the-mask-behind-the-many-men/
(13) Al Qa´ida´s Foreighn Fighters in Iraq. Combatting Terrorism center at West Point. http://tarpley.net/docs/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf
(14) CIA recruits 1.500 from Mazar-e-Sharif to fight in Libya. http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/31-Aug-2011/CIA-recruits-1500-from-MazareSharif-to-fight-in-Libya
(15) U.S. Sends CIA agents into Libya to analyze rebel forces. http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=40906
(16) Abdelhakim Belhadj, The Mask Behind the Many Men. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/abdelhakim-belhadj-the-mask-behind-the-many-men/
(17) The National Counsel of Syria and US Unconventional Warfare. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/the-national-counsel-of-syria-and-u-s-unconventional-warfare/
(18) Cornered in Abidjan as Fears Grow. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/andrewharding/2011/04/cornered_in_abidjan_as_fears_g.html
(19) Libya; Just One Moment. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/libya-just-one-moment/
(20) Gore won election by 538.948 votes; Bush won the count by 300. http://www.leinsdorf.com/Gore%20Wins%20the%20Election%20by%20538.htm
(21) Supreme Court of the United States; George W. Bush, et al., Petitioners v. Albert Gore, Jr., et al. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html
(22) DGSE http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/france/dgse.htm
(23) West African Leaders On The Sqare Against Gbagbo. http://www.ocnus.net/artman2/publish/Editorial_10/West-African-Leaders-On-The-Square-Against-Gbagbo.shtml
(24) Ivory Coast´s Gbagbo held after French tRoops move in. http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE73A01F20110411
(25) Ivory Coast´s Gbagbo Captured at Presidential Compound. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/west/Fresh-Clashes-Erupt-in-Ivory-Coast-After-UN-French-Attacks-119588724.html
(26) UN forces launch assault on Gbagbo stronghold in Abidjan. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/cotedivoire/8442953/UN-forces-launch-assault-on-Gbagbo-stronghold-in-Abidjan.html
(27) ICC Prosecutor requests judges for authorization to open an investigation in Cote d´Ivoire.
(28) History is a Weapon, Propaganda, E. Bernaise. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html
(29) Laurent Gbagbo wants Ivory Coast to leave CFA and create Ivoryan Currency. http://www.africanews.com/site/I_Coast_contemplate_new_currency/list_messages/36877
(30) IMF, France and Devaluation of CFA. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fabric/backgrnd.htm
(31) French Treasure controlls 8 African Nations Central Bank http://saoti.over-blog.com/article-17347736.html
(32) CFA Created To Keep African States Poor. http://www.panafricanvisions.com/old/9/development.htm
(33) CFA Devaluations, Poverty and Social Unrest. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/23/world/french-devaluation-of-african-currency-brings-wide-unrest.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
(34) The Euro-mediterranean Network of Social Economy. http://www.ces.es/TRESMED/docum/esmed_en.pdf .
(35) Libya rejects mediterranean Alliance. http://www.france24.com/en/20080615-libya-rejects-mediterranean-alliance-libya-france
(36) InfoPlease OAU. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0836842.html
(37) InfoPlease African Union. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0921480.html
(38) African Court of Justice. http://www.aict-ctia.org/courts_conti/acj/acj_home.html
(39) Financial Institutions of the A-U. . http://www.au.int/en/organs/fi
(40) GIGA EU-African Economic Relations. https://www.econstor.eu/dspace/bitstream/10419/47856/1/60872808X.pdf
(41) The African Unions Mistake of Policy and Principle. http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/article_7931.shtml
(42) UNSC Resolution 1973. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10200.doc.htm#Resolution
(43) ISC Munich 2007 – Punin, Full Text of Speech. http://www.securityconference.de/Putin-s-speech.381+M52087573ab0.0.html
(44) Russia, A Force to be recogned with….. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/russia-a-force-to-be-reckogned-with-in-the-coming-years/
(45) UN DONE.. http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/un-done-the-66th-session-of-the-general-assembley-reflections-by-dr-christof-lehmann
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And they said that English is real easy… Yeah right!
October 26, 2011 | Author: Hanif
Whilst igging through some of the ancient txt files on my pc the other night, I came across a real classic from years ago. To be honest, I think it dates back to the 1980s.
I appreciated it then and stillappreciate it so, I’ve decided to share it with you.
Share and enjoy!
****
— ENGLISH —
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it’s said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother.
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there.
And dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up — and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I’d learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five!
Epitaphs
October 24, 2011 | Author: Hanif
What de hell is an Epitaph?
An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial. An epitaph may be in poem verse; poets have been known to compose their own epitaphs prior to their death, as you shall see later on.
I’ve selected a few Epitaphs for you to make you smile or amuse you.
This epitaph can be found in Storrington Churchyard, England:
“Here lies the Body of Edward Hyde.
We laid him here because he died.”
Mary Keith Marshall’s epitaph is in a graveyard in Kentucky:
“She was good
but not brilliant;
Useful but
not great.”
King Robert III of Scotland wanted this epitaph: (He also
requested to be buried in an anthill.)
“Here lies the worst king and the most miserable man in the kingdom.”
This is the epitaph of Ellen Shannon which speaks for itself:
“Who was fatally burned
March 21, 1870
by the explosion of a lamp
filled with “R.E. Danforth’s
Non-Explosive Burning Fluid.”
John Brown, a dentist’s epitaph:
“Stranger! Approach this spot
with gravity!
John Brown is filling
his last cavity.”
This one was from a woman who had never married:
“No hits, no runs, no heirs.”
This epitaph was written for a young baby:
“Ope’d my eyes, took a peep;
Didn’t like it, went to sleep.”
William Shakespeare’s epitaph:
“Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear,
to dig the dust enclosed here!
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
and cursed be he that moves my bones.”
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr’s epitaph:
“Free at last, free at last,
thank God Almighty I’m free at last.”
W.C. Fields’ epitaph:
“On the whole I would rather be in Philadelphia.”
George Bernard Shaw’s epitaph:
“I knew if I stayed around long enough,
something like this would happen.”
Dennis Ritchie, father of C programming language, dies – by Steven Musil
October 16, 2011 | Author: Hanif
Originally published on October 13, 2011 7:24 AM PDT
Dennis Ritchie, an internationally renowned computer scientist who created the C programming language, has died at age 70.
Ritchie died at his home over the weekend, according to a Google+ post from longtime colleague Rob Pike. His Wikipedia entry was updated to say he had died in Murray Hill, N.J.
His death was confirmed today by Bell Labs, in a message from its president, Jeong Kim, to employees. That message reads, in part:
Dennis was well loved by his colleagues at Bell Labs, and will be greatly missed. He was truly an inspiration to all of us, not just for his many accomplishments, but because of who he was as a friend, an inventor, and a humble and gracious man.
In addition to being the creator of C, Ritchie co-authored “The C Programming Language,” commonly referred to as K&R (after the authors, Brian Kernighan and Ritchie) and widely considered the definitive work on C. He also made significant contributions to the development of the Unix operating system, for which he received the Turing Award in 1983 (along with Kenneth Thompson).
President Bill Clinton awarded Ritchie and Thompson the National Medal of Technology in 1999 for their contributions to Unix and C. He won many other national and international awards for his work and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988 for “development of the C programming language and for co-development of the Unix operating system.”
Ritchie went to work at Bell Labs’ Computing Sciences Research Center in 1967 and was widely known as “dmr”–his Bell Labs e-mail address. As part of an AT&T restructuring in the mid-1990s, Ritchie was transferred to Lucent Technologies, where he retired in 2007 as head of System Software Research Department.
In a tribute to Ritchie, Rupert Goodwins of CNET sister site ZDNet UK, offers some observations on Ritchie’s work habits and his legacy.
Ritchie had the lifestyle and habits to match his position as an early guru of IT. Long-haired and bearded, and famously more owl than lark, he started work at midday in his industry-standard chaotic office, emerging late in the evening to go home and carry on working through to the small hours at the end of a leased line connected to the Bell Labs computers….
His ideas live on, in the rudest of health, at the centre of modern operating system design, in new programming languages, and in every electron and bit of open systems.
Source = http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20119811-92/dennis-ritchie-father-of-c-programming-language-dies/
See what happend to this child…NATO & Rebels Crimes in Sirt
October 11, 2011 | Author: Hanif
I do not count those who support NATO and the UN as from amongst humankind.
It is perhaps those who have accused Adolf Hitler of the ultimate crime, who executed the lie.
I am human, Not European; I am African, Not European; I am a peace loving human not an NATO_UN Animal.
God is watching you all; allof you who make as if you don’t care, as if you don’t know; as if youare so Holier than thou.
He will ask of you on that day; and He will make you pay for every single individual injustice that you have brought upon the brave people of Libya.
And if you do not believe in a God, karma will do the job.
Wake up! Wake up, America! Wake up, England! Wake up France! Wake up, South Africa! You want to talk about freedom and how you cherish freedom? Waht do you know about freedom? How can you ask for freedom if you yourselves do not want freedom for your brothers and sisters in Libya?
Talk is cheap; Talk is cheap indeed!
Open letter to RATO (NATO and its RAT mercenaries) – Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
October 9, 2011 | Author: Hanif
Originally published on 6 October, 2011.
To NATO: Stop trying to lure poor and unemployed young men from Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan and Afghanistan into your sickening western crusade into Libya, stop sending these young men to their deaths, stop lying to them about how much they will be paid and stop using foreigners to fuel your horrendous selfish oil wars in Libya.
I never thought I would feel any pity for the RATS NATO is employing as mercenaries (against international law) in Libya. But now I address the young men who are being lured into this trap, promised thousands of dollars…to get killed and if not killed, return home unpaid. In a wheelchair (rented by NATO no doubt at a huge repayment price). Paralysed. NATO is bankrupt and thousands of mercenaries in Libya have stopped fighting because they have not been paid for weeks.
The fact of the matter is very, very different from the nonsense that NATO and its bought media is putting out. When NATO or its contractors contacts you, it is telling you that it will pay so much per day, so much per week or so much per month, promoting freedom and democracy in Libya, rebuilding a nation and participating in a new modernisation process, which in the future will have many future avenues for employment. The nation in question is Libya, whose Jamahiriya system was and is and will be the most democratic system of governance that has ever existed and let’s be honest, whose population has been perfectly happy with the excellent standard of living Colonel Gaddafi provided.
What NATO is not telling you is that once you are sent into battle, on the ground, you are alone. Alone because NATO cannot place boots on the ground in Libya (OK everyone knows they do, everyone knows that governments do not comment on Special Forces involvement and everyone knows the families are also sworn to secrecy. Yet ask the growing number of British families whose loved ones have disappeared, ask the growing number of American families. Only this week 383 bodies of US Special Forces and Airmen were recovered by the Libyan Authorities from Ras Lanuf where the 82nd Airbourne Division suffered a tremendous and humiliating defeat, complete with Hercules aircraft blown up full of those who were sent to kill). What, didn’t the US press report on this? But when the going gets hot, they run and send you forward. After all, they say you are going to get paid so you have to do some work…
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Are you stupid, or what?
What NATO is not telling you is that you will not be paid one cent, basically because NATO does not have any money. In Britain for instance, David Cameron is lecturing his population on how to handle their finances while he himself blows two billion pounds on this murderous imperialistic adventure because his friend Sarkozy needs cheap oil to fuel his economy and because he inherited a Government compromised with placing the Libyan opposition into power so that NATO could recolonise Africa. But the FUKUS (France, UK, US) is bankrupt.
What NATO is not telling you is that you are being sent to your deaths by this callous organization whose respect for human life is quite obviously zero. How any Moslem or Christian could work for this organization is beyond logic…it is like selling your soul to the Devil.
And before NATO tells you otherwise, the vast majority of Libyans are behind their legitimate Government, the Jamahiriya, the vast majority of those they call the “rats” are foreigners like yourselves being recruited from Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
What NATO is not telling you is quite how many of you are being killed. The Libyan Armed Forces are very well trained, better than the NATO special forces, and are extremely well armed, and they have resources to last them for decades. The 150,000 of your brothers who lie rotting and stinking in Libya’s streets and infesting its sands bear witness to the veracity of this article. That is the sickening truth. NATO has no respect for you, its military leaders are laughing behind your backs because your deaths are saving westerners from dying and NATO’s political leaders do not even know you exist. In the last week, 7,000 RATO mercenaries have died. Most were from Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Remember, in going to Libya, you are fighting as mercenaries for a foreign force in favour of the greedy self-interests of the FUKUS countries: oil. You are also fighting against good Moslems and against people who will rightfully defend their country. When your home is invaded, you do not hand the robber the keys, now do you?
Instead of signing up for the Devil trying to lure you into this trap, do yourself and thousands of your brethren a favour: treat the person trying to sign you up as you would treat the Devil. Do the decent thing. Don’t let yourself and your family be raped by NATO.
Guess how many of these people are Libyans? Or Pakistanis? Or Afghans? Or Tunisians/Egyptians? And in this case, spot the British and Americans… On the wall, racist references to Muammar Gaddafi as a “black” with a banana. This scourge has promised to rid Libya of Negroes. Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy support it.
Source = Pravda.Ru
Posted in Activism, Africa, General, Libya, Occupation, Political, USA, War and Terrorism news
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Libyans Resist NATO’s Killing Machine – by Stephen Lendman
October 9, 2011 | Author: Hanif
Originally posted on 06 October 2011
For over six and a half months, Libyans tied down the world’s mightiest military force despite overwhelming odds against them and enormous loss of life and human suffering.
Established in 1949, NATO was never a “military alliance for peace and security.” It was for offense, not defense. Cold War hysteria was contrived to incite fear and assure an arms race for corporate dominance and enrichment.
Twenty years after Soviet Russia dissolved, NATO interventions under US control threaten world peace and humanity, lurching from one war to another.
Interdicting for corporate predators, it’s a rogue killing machine. Its mission isn’t liberation. It’s slaughtering, ravaging and pillaging for power and profit.
Using a proxy cutthroat mercenary army, Libya was pounded by relentless land and air assaults. A wasteland replaced a once peaceful country. Daily attacks ravage it further.
Corpses pile up on other ones. Human misery is incalculable. Death, disease and starvation haunt the living. Tens of thousands of Sirte residents face ferocious daily terror bombing.
Food, water, medical supplies and fuel were cut off. Indiscriminate mass killing targets civilians. Schools, hospitals, homes and other nonmilitary sites have been destroyed.
NATO’s war on Libya is one of history’s great crimes. Sirte is ground zero, facing genocidal slaughter and mass destruction.
Spread the word! Point fingers! Hold those responsible accountable for unconscionable imperial barbarism!
Start with Obama, an unindicted war criminal multiple times over, planning more wars besides others ongoing. Americans also sacrifice liberties and benefits for them. The worst is yet to come.
The battle of Libya rages. Brave resistance fighters won’t quit. Killing alone sustains NATO control anywhere across the country. Let up and lose it. Unreported by Western media, it’s happening city by city, town by town, and village by village.
Christof Lehmann’s NSNBC provides regular updates Western media and Qatari controlled Al Jazeera suppress, cheerleading instead of denouncing NATO’s imperial project across North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
On October 3, Lehmann said:
“Southern Libya is firmly under” loyalists’ control. “Fighting continues in Tripoli, North Eastern and North Western Libya.” Algerian tribal leaders joined “The War for the Liberation of Northern Africa.”
As a result, NATO plans expanding the war to Algeria. Lehmann said reports he’s getting are that “special operations units and (others) belonging to the 82nd Airborne have been on the ground in Algeria for ‘some time.’ ”
On October 2, they “came under heavy attack and received heavy casualties. A C-130 Hercules transport and paratrooper plane were destroyed on the ground.”
Other intelligence also “provided evidence that Algeria was targeted by NATO….European Embassy chatter” suggests Americans and Europeans are “being psychologically” manipulated to believe Al Qaeda threatens the country.
Maybe Haqqanis as well, Washington’s latest reason for more war, perhaps against Pakistan where Joint Chiefs head Admiral Mike Mullen claims they’re tied to its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
NATO, of course, recruited Al Qaeda elements to fight in Libya and elsewhere. The CIA created group is conveniently used as both friend and foe, depending on where and for what strategic purpose.
Algeria’s pro-Western government apparently willingly cooperates. In contrast, ordinary Algerians, Libyans, Iraqis and Afghans strongly resist.
Libya’s puppet Transitional National Council (TNC) is “in chaos.” Most of its members deserted. About 80% of Tripoli displays Gaddafi’s green banner. It’s the only national flag with one color and no design, insignia or other markings.
Sirte and Bani Walid sieges “are breaking up.” Rebels suffered heavy casualties. Former Al Qaeda insurgent/now CIA asset Tripoli military commander Abdelhakim Belhadj “describes the situation as chaotic.”
Despite omnipotent air power, “NATO is losing the battle on the ground. (Engaging in) heavy clashes around both cities, (resistance fighters) established contact with the military, Tribal and Volunteer Forces that came to their relief.”
Reports indicate “heavy infighting between TNC forces in Misurata and Benghazi with numerous casualties.”
On October 2, “heavy fighting erupted in and around” Tripoli’s Green Square. Libyan forces seized an ammunition depot. Fighting raged at Tripoli’s Mitiga and military airports. Tribal militia fighters “secured several banks in Tripoli and began refunding money” stolen by TNC thieves.
POWs were also freed from prisons. As a result, “The Green Flag is flying over 80% of Tripoli.” TNC puppet head Mustafa Abdul Jalil is “desperate(ly calling) for unity (under) a new government.”
Belhadj called his plea “ridiculous in the face of the fact that almost 90%” of TNC members abandoned ship they see going down.
Tripoli residents and resistance fighters won’t quit. On September 30, Human Rights Watch reported TNC militia groups making arbitrary arrests, and abusing prison detainees across western Libya in makeshift facilities.
Assessing conditions in Tripoli, 53 detainees interviewed reported beatings, electric shocks, and other forms of abuse. Arrested without charge, none were prosecuted before judges.
Since late August, TNC allied brigades and militias “arrested thousands and held them without proper legal review.” Those accused without evidence of serious crimes experienced horrific treatment amounting to torture.
Many arrested were Black African guest workers, accused of being Gaddafi mercenaries or loyalists. An alliance of Libyan, Algerian, Moroccan, and Polisario tribes called for liberating North Africa.
In 1980, Libya recognized the Western Sahara’s Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as do other non-NATO states.
TNC fighters fled Derna after taking heavy casualties. About half of Al-Baida was freed. On October 3, reports indicated “heavy street to street, house to house, and room to room fighting in Benghazi with heavy casualties on both sides.” Half the city is liberated. TNC forces control its center.
A Tobruk TNC detachment sent to help “was literally wiped out….In Sawiah, the green flag is hoisted over a liberated city.”
In Zliten and surrounding areas, TNC representatives and insurgents were told to leave or be “thrown out by the people.” After months of relentless NATO assaults, “an estimated 97% of the Libyan population” stands firmly behind Gaddafi and the legitimate Libyan government.
If close to true, Washington is “considerably worse” off than in Vietnam.
On October 3, Sirte came under heavy ground and air attack. “After heavy fighting, (it ground) to a halt this morning,” suggesting insurgents can’t advance despite relentless air support. They’re also vulnerable to counterattack.
According to Russian intelligence, Tuareg tribal fighters, demonstrated considerable desert warfare skills. Reports said 35 TNC tanks and armored personnel carriers were destroyed.
“The Libyan Youth movement….declared war on the TNC (and began) an assassination campaign” to eliminate anti-Gaddafi elements.
Libyans now await the next onslaught. Tripoli residents remain committed. Well armed by Gaddafi, they’re able to strike back. As a result, TNC forces manning roadblocks “came under sniper fire….resulting in heavy casualties.”
Libyans know their country was the pearl of Africa “worth fighting for.” It’s theirs. They want it back and intend to get it.
Deaths and injuries mount daily as does mass destruction. NATO turned Libya into an inferno, a hellish charnel house.
Never forgive! Never forget!
A Final Comment
America’s media never met an imperial war they didn’t endorse and promote. Regurgitating official lies passes for news, commentaries and analysis.
As a de facto propaganda ministry, The New York Times leads the pack, calling massacres “liberation.”
Despite genocidal slaughter and mass destruction, its September 9 editorial headlined, “A New Start for Libya,” saying:
“There are….signs of progress on military, diplomatic, economic and political fronts….Plans have been drafted for electing a constitutional assembly by early next year.”
“Considering the situation six months ago, there is reason to be encouraged.”
Fact check
Washington and key NATO allies waged lawless imperial aggression against a nonbelligerent country. Corrupted TNC officials were bribed to establish a puppet regime.
Plans include leadership subservient to Western interests. Occupying, raping and pillaging Libya is planned. Democracy won’t be tolerated.
Libyans reacted heroically, fighting back to save what’s left of their country and rebuild. Protracted struggle lies ahead. Like Afghans and Iraqis, Libyans won’t quit until they’re free.
The Times Libya – Revolution (2011) page offers a litany of distortions and canards. Calling planned NATO aggression “revolution,” it mischaracterized hired mercenaries as “rebels.”
Gaddafi’s response to imperial barbarism was called “extreme violence,” not self-defense. Western TNC puppet leaders are portrayed as “a (legitimate) transitional government.”
Gaddafi’s Libya no longer exists. A wasteland replaced a once peaceful country. Dead, dying and injured numbers mount daily.
New York Times correspondents, commentators and editorial writers bear witness to what they know but won’t say.
It’s a Times tradition, presenting sanitized versions of real news, information and analysis.
Its Libya reporting shows how low it sunk, calling a charnel house “a new start.”
It’s why reliable online sources gain followers to learn what NYT and other major media scoundrels won’t say.
Make them a regular habit to learn what everyone needs to know – the truth.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
Posted in Activism, Africa, General, Islam, Libya, Occupation, Political, USA, War and Terrorism news, World News
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Libya: Illustrious corpses; – the truth is always revolutionary. – Opinion: Toni Solo
September 28, 2011 | Author: Hanif
Originally published on Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 12:03 pm
Right now in Libya the UN recognized government and its NATO masters are bombing hundreds of civilians to death in Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha. They have bombed schools and hospitals and murdered whole families. This infamy was sanctioned by the UN from the beginning and has been justified by many of the cream of international progressive intellectuals. It is long past time to identify and condemn these accomplices to the crimes against humanity in Libya committed by the Western elites and their puppet governments.
The colonial war against Libya has defined more sharply than ever the structures of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour that characterize progressive and radical intellectual production in Europe and North America. The war has thrown that production into crisis. It could not be clearer now that the class function of intellectual managers like Gilbert Achcar, Immanuel Wallerstein, Ignacio Ramonet and similar individuals is to neuter effective protest against corporate capitalism and imperialism.
The crypto-fascist Irish poet W.B.Yeats once wrote, “Did that play of mine send out certain men the English shot?” Intellectual managers like Achar, Ramonet and Wallerstein, Samir Amin, Atilio Boron, Ramzy Baroud and Santiago Alba Rico might ask themselves, “Did our work prepare the vicious NATO genocide in Libya?” Of course, the answer is “yes, it did”. They also seem to think that reality is perfectly all right.
They avow they seek radical social change and revolution in theory. But wherever processes have achieved genuine social change in the real world, as in the Libyan Jamahiriya, they attack them or, as in Venezuela, seek to mould them to their own narcissistic criteria. If one looks at the expressions of dissent privileged under corporate consumer capitalism they are all varieties of anarchism.
Of course they are. Anarchist anti-communism is a spoilt child doted on and nurtured by the capitalist elites– a nuisance, but a useful one and very much part of the laissez-faire family. Capitalism easily accommodates and co-opts fatuous slogans like “Another world is possible”. We can see what world they have in mind by looking at Libya. The intellectuals who supported the murderous racist Libyan renegades and NATO’s contract putsch-insurrection are a good example of how the process of co-optation and accommodation works.
They assimilate themselves into the rituals and processes of public life in the plutocracies of North America and Europe. They shift between academic life, non-governmental activity and participation in the mass corporate psy-warfare media and their alternative counterparts, the gatekeepers of permissible dissent. Libya has finally brought this reality out into the open in the most categorical way. One has only to look back at what influential intellectual managers produced around the time of the March 19th UN Resolution 1973.
Here’s Immanuel Wallerstein (http://www.iwallerstein.com/libya-world-left/ [1]) :
“The second point missed by Hugo Chavez’s analysis is that there is not going to be any significant military involvement of the western world in Libya. The public statements are all huff and puff, designed to impress local opinion at home. There will be no Security Council resolution because Russia and China won’t go along. There will be no NATO resolution because Germany and some others won’t go along. Even Sarkozy’s militant anti-Qaddafi stance is meeting resistance within France.”
Here’s Ignacio Ramonet (http://www.monde-diplomatique.es/?url=editorial/000085641287216818681110… [2]) :
“Under such circumstances, any other reasonable leader would have understood that the time to negotiate and give up power had arrived. But not Colonel Gadafi. At the risk of submerging his country in a civil war, the “Guide”, in power for 42 years, explained that the demonstrators were “youngsters Al Qaeda had drugged by adding hallucinogenic pills to their Nescafé”. And he ordered the armed forces to repress the protests with heavy gunfire and extreme force. The Al Jazeera channel showed military planes strafing civilian demonstrators.”
and
“One can be against the current structure of the United Nations, or reckon that its operations leave much to be desired. Or that the Western powers dominate the organization. These are acceptable criticisms. But for the moment the UN constitutes the only source of international law. In that sense, and contrary to the wars wars in Kosovo or Iraq which were never sanctioned by the UN, the current intervention in Libya is legal, according to international law; legitimate according to the principles of solidarity among democrats; and desirable for the international community which brings together people struggling for their liberty.”
Here’s Gilbert Achcar (http://www.zcommunications.org/libya-a-legitimate-and-necessary-debate-f… [3]) :
“The idea that Western powers are intervening in Libya because they want to topple a regime hostile to their interests is just preposterous. Equally preposterous is the idea that what they are after is laying their hands on Libyan oil. In fact, the whole range of Western oil and gas companies is active in Libya: Italy’s ENI, Germany’s Wintershall, Britain’s BP, France’s Total and GDF Suez, US companies ConocoPhillips, Hess, and Occidental, British-Dutch Shell, Spain’s Repsol, Canada’s Suncor, Norway’s Statoil, etc. Why then are Western powers intervening in Libya today, and not in Rwanda yesterday and Congo yesterday and today? As one of those who have energetically argued that the invasion of Iraq was “about oil” against those who tried to outsmart us by saying that we were “reductionists,” don’t expect me to argue that this one is not about oil. It definitely is. But how?
My take on that is the following. After watching for a few weeks Gaddafi conducting his terribly brutal and bloody suppression of the uprising that started in mid-February — estimates of the number of people killed in early March ranged from 1000 to 10,000, the latter figure by the International Criminal Court, with the Libyan opposition’s estimates ranging between 6,000 and 8,000 — Western governments, like everybody else for that matter, became convinced that with Gaddafi set on a counter-revolutionary offensive and reaching the outskirts of Libya’s second largest city of Benghazi (over 600,000 inhabitants), a mass-scale slaughter was imminent.”
Counterfactual perception management
One could quote many more examples of the intellectual dishonesty, ignorance, stupidity, arrogance and cynicism of these prestigious writers and others like, for example, Santiago Alba Rico, Atilio Boron, Ramzy Baroud and Samir Amin. But the extra bulk of documentation would add nothing to the overall picture of narcissistic collaboration with the dominant NATO corporate psy-warfare machine. Nor is it worth dallying over the role of NATO’s favourite gatekeepers of permissible dissent like Counterpunch, ZNet, Rebelión and other similar alternative information web sites.
Those sites did their job of muting and censoring effective discussion and argument at crucial moments prior to the March 19th vote in the UN Security Council and around the decisive event of NATO’s ground invasion of Tripoli in August. A tiny handful of writers, among them John Pilger and Tariq Ali, spoke out against the war. But even they still swallowed hook, line and sinker the NATO psy-warfare caricature of Muammar Al Ghaddafi as a blood-on-his-hands dictator-clown.
While the individual errors of Achcar, Wallerstein and Ramonet may vary, all of them start from the central premise of NATO’s psychological warfare offensive, namely, that Libya was a dictatorship overthrown by a popular revolution. As part of their suspiciously coherent perception management of events in Libya, all these NATO psy-warfare collaborators omit the following facts:
• prior to March 19th the Libyan Jamahiriya had called for negotiations and a UN fact-finding mission – rejected both by the renegades and the dominant powers in the UN;
• the only reliably confirmed information about events in Libya between February 17th and March 19th came from the Libyan government the Libyan government’s account was confirmed by testimony from both Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen as well as by Russian military intelligence prior to the March 19th Resolution 1973.
• there was never any reliable evidence of the Libyan Jamahiriya bombing or machine gunning peaceful demonstrations in February or March;
• on the other hand credible accounts of racist pogroms and lynchings by the Libyan renegades were available from the very start of the events in Benghazi in February ;
• the African Union’s constant insistence from the very start of the conflict on a negotiated peace was welcomed by the Libyan Jamihiriya;
• the devastating role played by international sanctions imposed on the basis of the flagrant fabrication of Libyan involvement in the Lockerbie terrorist atrocity badly affected Libya’s development between 1992 and 2003;
• by 2011 Libya’s population enjoyed an unparalleled high standard of living relative to the rest of Africa;
• US$200bn in funds were saved by the Libyan Jamahiriya and administered for the benefit of the Libyan people and impoverished African countries;
• the Libyan Jamahiriya promoted innumerable significant and strategic development initiatives in other African countries;
• prior to their NATO supported putsch- insurrection, the currrent renegade leaders promoted corporate friendly Western neoliberal policies that were firmly resisted by Muammar Al Ghaddafi
• once they realized Maummar Al Ghadafi was resisting deepening neoliberal reforms, NATO planned and carried out the Southern Mistral war game in which they practised a military assault against Libya
Analysis with feet of clay
One could go on delving into more detail to rebut all the false claims and hypocritical assertions made by NATO psy-warfare fellow travellers like Ramonet, Achcar and Wallerstein. But it is enough to look at the excerpts quoted above to see how skewed, disingenuous, arrogant, cynical and downright baseless their arguments are. These are classic characteristics of NATO country perception management against targets from the Cuban revolution to the UN supported coups in Haiti and the Ivory Coast
Immanuel Wallerstein completely failed to predict the course of events in Libya in the most abject and ridiculous way. The UN Security Council did pass a resolution. NATO did resolve to go to war. President Sarkozy easily secured his country’s approval for French armed forces to participate in NATO’s colonial war.
Wallerstein demonstrated complete idiocy in his appraisal of events in March 2011. We can add his illustrious corpse to the Ship of Fools adrift over Libya full to the gunwales with NATO dupes who got things completely wrong on Libya. Wallerstein’s fatuous patronising arrogance duped him into hopeless error. By contrast, the appraisal of the facts by Fidel Castro and President Hugo Chavez was absolutely right.
The falsehoods of Ignacio Ramonet
Ignacio Ramonet completely misrepresented the nature of the events in February in Benghazi. No reliable evidence indicates that peaceful demonstrators were fired on. At the time, the Libyan government’s account was confirmed by testimony from both US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the US armed forces Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, as well as by Russian military intelligence prior to the March 19th Resolution 1973. Now the highest estimates of deaths as a result of the armed insurrection in Libya between February 17th and March 19th are around 250.
Ramonet got things wrong because he took as his source a notorious NATO propaganda outlet, the UK Guardian newspaper. The Guardian’s foreign news coverage is at least as cynical and skewed as that of El País or Le Monde. Ramonet also relied on the Qatar dominated Al Jazeera, now overwhelmingly staffed by staff who previously worked with NATO country mainstream corporate media.
It is not as strange as it seems that a supposed radical like Ignacio Ramonet should ignore the entire history of imperialist interventions over the last 200 years. At one time Ramonet was extremely proud of his work promoting the World Social Forum. That body is thoroughly compromised by its links to corporate funders.
On Libya, Ramonet also dishonestly suggests as a fact something he most certainly does not know, namely that Muammar al Ghaddafi ordered the use of extreme force against peaceful demonstrators. That suggestion is pure propaganda as is his selective quote of Muammar al Ghaddafi’s comments at the time.. To write as Ignacio Ramonet then did, that UN Resolution 1973 was legal, legitimate and desirable, takes self-serving cynicism to its very extremes.
Former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates had already pointed out correctly that enforcing a no fly zone necessarily involved military aggression. But the UN Charter specifically rules out military action except in self-defence. Hence President Obama’s counterfactual statement that the United States is not at war against Libya. So much for United Nations legality.
In any case, Resolution 1973 calls for a peaceful negotiated solution. That option proposed by the Libyan government and the African Union and by Latin America’s ALBA bloc of countries had already been rejected by the Libyan renegades. They rejected negotiations on the strength of the support they were getting from the very governments who cynically passed the Resolution knowing neither they themselves nor the renegades had any intention of seeking a peaceful settlement.
Ramonet argues that the UN blank cheque for intervention was legitimate in terms of democratic solidarity. Here we come up against a fundamental contradiction of the international neocolonial Left. Igancio Ramonet, a famous critic of corporate capitalism, tacitly accepts, after all, that North America and Europe are composed of democracies and he explicitly describes the Libyan Jamahiriya as a dictatorship.
But it is the Libyan Jamahiriya that carefully saved and invested hundreds of billions of dollars which it then used very clearly for the benefit of the Libyan people and other African peoples. On the other hand, it is the rotten-corrupt plutocracies of Europe and North America that have sucked dry their peoples so as to enrich a tiny corporate elite of crooked bankers and speculators and to protect their criminal financial system. The democratic solidarity Ramonet is talking about is no more than a narcissistic construct conjured up to justify his ideological prejudice against the Libyan Jamahiriya.
To conclude, as Ignacio Ramonet then does, that the UN Resolution 1973 was in any way desirable is plainly disingenuous folly. The terms of Resolution 1973 left matters wide open to whatever interpretation the North American and European governments concerned chose to put on it. No serious observer expected anything less than the ruthless application of force to support the racist putsch-insurrection struggling for existence in Benghazi.
That putsch-insurrection completely lacked popular support in the rest of Libya. Like Achcar and Wallerstein, Ramonet ignored plenty of readily available information that indicated those very facts which have been confirmed over and over again since March 19th 2011. Ramonet’s reputation is one more illustrious corpse in the Ship of Fools illuminated by the flames of NATO’s genocide in Zliten, Tripoli, Sirte and Bani Walid.
Gilbert Achcar – psy-warfare operative
Gilbert Achcar’s is perhaps the most egregiously dishonest and overt case of collabroation in NATO’s psychological warfare against the Libyan people. With regard to Libya, Immanuel Wallerstein turned out to be a dunderhead and Ignacio Ramonet, more than anything, a narcissistic disingenuous buffoon. But Gilbert Achcar’s position is one carefully politically calculated in the most absolute bad faith.
Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at Britain’s Foreign and Colonial Office’s extra-mural School of Oriental and African Studies. He has taught in France and Britain for over 30 years now. Only the most naive would believe Achcar has not been utterly co-opted by his environment. His remarks on Libya demonstrate his moral and intellectual capitulation as a colonialist apologist to a fault.
“The idea that Western powers are intervening in Libya because they want to topple a regime hostile to their interests is just preposterous.” It is very rare for a NATO psy-warfare operative to out themselves like this. Self-evidently, it is Gilbert Achcar’s view that is truly preposterous, suggesting the Western regimes intervening in Libya have done so for any other reason than that the Libyan Jamahiriya blocked their plans on several fronts.
Achcar continues to out himself as a NATO apologist by shamelessly citing as categorical fact the most extreme and ridiculous figures of civilian deaths at the hands of the forces of the Libyan Jamahiriya with absolutely no basis in any legitimate reporting or investigation. “Estimates of the number of people killed in early March ranged from 1000 to 10,000, the latter figure by the International Criminal Court, with the Libyan opposition’s estimates ranging between 6,000 and 8,000.”
Only a NATO stooge would expect to be taken seriously when citing the International Criminal Court as a reliable source. As it turns out, the ICC on this matter has been completely discredited, along with its other ridiculous lie about allegations of mass rape by Libyan army troops on Viagra. The illustrious corpse of the ICC’s Luis Moreno Campo’s reputation, or its desiccated remains, joins those of Wallerstein, Ramonet and Achcar and their accomplices in the NATO fellow-travellers funeral Barge-of-Fools going up in flames in the sands of Libya.
The facts now established and accepted by all but NATO collaborators like Gilbert Achcar are that the Libyan security forces did not fire on unarmed demonstrators. Respected human rights organizations put the number of fatalities as a result of the armed insurrection between February 17th and March 19th at around 250. So it was extremely unlikely that Achcar’s scare of “mass-scale slaughter” was in any way likely, especially since the Libyan authorities were offering to negotiate. What is indeed absolutely clear is that Achcar is a fully committed psy-warfare operative in NATO’s war against Libya and everyone who expresses solidarity with the Libyan Jamahiriya.
Intellectuals and counterintelligence
In the 1950s and the 1960s, the CIA and its fellow intelligence agencies invested a great deal of money and resources suborning intellectuals in Europe and in North America. The story of Encounter magazine and the career of the poet Stephen Spender in Britain is emblematic. Other examples abound. It would be extremely foolish to think the same practices have not persisted and become more sophisticated into the present day.
An example of the way the counter-intelligence network of outright NATO collaborators and fellow travellers works has come to light in relation to Libya. One of the gatekeepers of permissible dissent, the Spanish web site Rebelión, prominently featured an article by Santiago Alba Rico. Like Achcar, Alba Rico is a prominent academic, a specialist on the Arab world in the best traditions of Orientalism. Alba Rico demonstrates that Edward Said’s critical concept of Orientalism can readily involute upon itself for the purposes of neocolonial propaganda.
In the course of his article Alba Rico writes of the situation’s complexity only to drastically simplify it in favour of his point of view. “Even Nato is aware of this complexity as is demonstrated by the fact – as Gilbert Achcar has pointed out – that Libya has been bombed very little, with the aim of lengthening the war and trying to achieve the defeat of the regime without truly breaking with it.” One pictures Achcar and Alba Rico in places like Zliten, or Sirte telling the mourning relatives of dead NATO victims there to stop crying, “After all, you’ve only been bombed a little…”
Only a shameless apologist for NATO would attempt to allege that Libya has been bombed “very little”. On cue, Alba Rico seizes on this and uses Achcar’s grotesque cynical falsehood to pad out his own apology for the colonialist onslaught against the Libyan Jamahiriya. At this point, it is possible to move on from the lies and hypocrisies of these NATO collaborators and fellow travellers and look at their claims for their own intellectual and ethical standards.
One useful source of information about what has really been going on in Libya beyond NATO psy-warfare disinformation reports has been Leonor Massanet. Someone who worked with Rebelión until very recently has confirmed that Santiago Alba Rico engaged in deliberate behind-the-scenes character assassination of Leonor Massanet. Alba Rico’s aim, in which to some extent he clearly succeeded, was to discredit Leonor because her plausible and credible account of events in Libya contradicted his own thoroughly false analysis.
When one comes across cases of people being turned into non-persons or being calumnied in this way, one is at the limits of legitimate intellectual disagreement. Beyond that frontier one, is then dealing with the abuse of power for counter-intelligence purposes to neutralize effective dissent. Right now, the whole world is a vast mess of low-intensity conflict and outright war. The Western elites are determined to dominate the world’s peoples and their natural resources. The activities of NATO fellow-travellers like Gilbert Achcar and Santiago Alba Rico are far from innocent or coincidental.
Here we are faced with the reality of the thorough hypocrisy of the co-opted alternative news and information media. All of them, whether it’s Rope-a-dope [4], Zzzz [5] or Sumisión [6] purport to deliver reliable factual information from a variety of viewpoints. All of them are infested with hypocritical self-regarding phonies who readily suppress views they dislike. They all engage in what Gilbert Achcar would term “Stalinist” censorship and the making of non-persons. Leonor Massanet is far from being the only victim of this pernicious deceitful managerial counter-intelligence manipulated culture.
Psy-warfare’s next offensive : ALBA
Psychological warfare is a vital component of total war. All through the 1980s and 1990s the North American and European NGO sector was systematically co-opted by NATO country governments to serve NATO propaganda ends. In effect, they are the soft extra-mural arm of their countries’ Foreign Ministries, and routinely project those countries’ foreign policies. That reality has been very well documented. It is as true of the structures available to progressive intellectual workers as it is of the NGOs that employ progressive aid and development workers.
The alternative media’s coverage of NATO’s contract putsch-insurrection against the Libya Jamahariya has demonstrated this with the most startling clarity. Along with the Libyan Jamahariya, other perennial victims of their deceit and hypocrisy have been the Sandinista Front for National Liberation in Nicaragua, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia as well as national Communist Parties in general. Presumably, other people devoted to other causes and issues will have had identical experiences.
It is a fact that neocolonial intellectual and cultural networks tend to dominate international anti-imperialist intellectual production. Their members have a vested interest in maintaining the class structure inherent to that production, one that effectively censors argument and maintains strictly policed parameters. The colonial invasion of Libya has demonstrated with absolute clarity that effective anti-imperialism – for example by the FSLN in Nicaragua or the PSUV in Venezuela – is under threat from both the right and the neocolonial left.
After Libya, a likely future target will be Nicaragua. But the NATO elites view Nicaragua as simply an hors d’oeuvre for the main course, Venezuela. The battle for Venezuela began back in 2002 and will get more and more fierce once President Hugo Chavez wins re-election ten years on, in 2012. The international neocolonial Left is hard at work sawing the floor away from under the Sandinista revolutionary process in Nicaragua. Nor is it in any way controversial to say they are busy trying to co-opt the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. Libya has shown they are capable of any infamy.
ENDS
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