Thoughts from the U.S. on Qaddafi, Libya and the New World Order


Thoughts from the U.S. on Qaddafi, Libya and the New World Order

 

I knew the media never spared Qaddafi any insult. They readily made him out to be stupid, insane, paranoid, but not vile and evil. I had always wondered, in passing, the story behind the man and now I was determined to find out.`

By H.L. Martin

I realize now that I grew up with Muammar Qaddafi, even though we never met and lived on opposite sides of the world. He first entered my consciousness via the television. Being a child I didn’t know anything about him, except that he was the leader of some exotic place, dressed in a way that got my attention and the regular hosts of whatever show he was on would seem disdainful of his very presence.

That got my attention too. I had nothing to hold against this unusual character. I already knew better than to believe what the people on the news wanted me to. If I were to believe them then every sunny summer day was “unbearably hot” cool rainy days were “dark and miserable”, and on days of completely impeccable perfection they would say “the allergy count is at an all time high!” Just because they were incapable of having a good day in their lives, didn’t mean I should follow their example. So when I was confronted with the image of Qaddafi, I was curious, I watched, I listened, and then went on with my life.

As the years went by, I would catch more rare glimpses of this man, and many more comedic representations making fun of him. Despite the obvious hostility, that the media and entertainers displayed toward him, I could not reconcile their attitudes to what the man said, when they would actually give him a chance to speak. He spoke about the corporate powers in control of my country’s government, and other governments involved with it. He talked about the lies and propaganda of AlJazeera, that was feeding in with the United States’ oil and war-for-profit agenda. He spoke about the things I knew but our media would not talk about, things many of the American people know in their hearts to be true. The snickering snobbery of the television people became transparent as fear. I never liked watching news shows on television, but if Qaddafi was on, it would be like a sudden gust of fresh air ripped through the shallow, fake, plastic television world, and then I would watch bemused as they would try to justify their own denial by calling him “crazy” and “paranoid”. The things I heard him say made perfect sense to me, but then, I’m probably what those TV people would think is crazy. After all, I’m not dying and wheezing when it’s 85 and sunny.

Fast forward to the present, I find myself hearing Qaddafi mentioned along with such descriptive words and phrases as genocide, blood thirsty, cruel dictator, evil.  Suddenly he and Libya are the next targets in this war that seems to go country by oil-bearing country. I knew the media never spared Qaddafi any insult. They readily made him out to be stupid, insane, paranoid, but not vile and evil. I had always wondered, in passing, the story behind the man and now I was determined to find out.

I began researching. I wanted to know the history of the man, the country, and most importantly, if there was any real reason why the nation I live in should be attacking them. Our nation should not be attacking anyone, period, but I wanted to know what their excuse was. I wanted to know about the genocide. Who was being the target of genocide? What tribe or ethnic group? Who had Qaddafi killed? Why was he always portrayed as an idiot? I thought it would be an easy matter, but the more information I found the more questions I had to answer. One article accusing him of genocide said he was killing all of the Blacks, because he was a White supremacist. Another said he was killing the Whites, being a Black supremacist; hardly what I could consider credible evidence.

Historical records (ie, books) showed Qaddafi as having a history of reaching out to tribal peoples in his land and meeting with them, something no ruler of Libya had done before. There was a lot of evidence to support that tribal relations were good. I got ahold of Qaddafi’s Green Book and tried to find plans for genocide in it. Hitler had detailed his genocidal plans quite openly in Mein Kampf, but I could find no evidence of such hate in The Green Book.

Before researching Qaddafi and Libya, I had done a lot of research and truth seeking into matters closer to home. Aggression broke out in Libya as I began on the final draft of my novel, which deals with a lot of the information I have come across. I had learned many shocking things about our own government, such as the orchestrated false flag attacks on the World Trade Towers and Building Seven on 9/11/01. Many Americans, including myself, were fooled, even if temporarily, into believing that Muslim terrorists were responsible for the attacks. Really it was a controlled demolition, orchestrated to motivate the people into supporting an unjust war in the Middle East.

I also had learned about the enslaving form of banking that had taken root in my nation within the past century, something that the framers of our Constitution and founders of our country warned about and sought to protect the nation from. Our President, John F. Kennedy sought to resist the bank and re-institute a more American form of money issuance, the silver standard. He was assassinated by operatives within the CIA, and the murder was blamed on a man who was just an escape goat.

I learned of Project Paperclip that followed World War II, in which The US and its allies made sure that countless Nazi war criminals were expatriated to other countries to live in luxurious freedom. These are just the main highlights of the conspiratorial and seemingly self-destructing behavior our own nation engages in. Plans are in the works for a New World Order and one world government, where national borders and sovereignty are dissolved. The United Nations is the spearhead of this endeavor, and the United States is a very key player.

Back to Qaddafi, my research took me into the history of his country and my own. I found the probable cause of all the derision he had weathered over the years, the Lockerbie bombing. Now this event took place when I was but a child, so I was not well aware of it at the time, but this is what I discovered. A bomb was placed on a plane owned by an American company, Pan Am. The bomb exploded over Lockerbie Scotland killing many people. This had many similarities to the 9/11 attacks such as an American airplane supposedly being used for terrorist purposes. When accused of the bombing, Qaddafi denied it. Then President Ronald Reagan promptly bombed Qaddafi’s home in an attempt to kill him, murdering Qaddafi’s child in the process. Facing the threat of further attack, Qaddafi “admitted” to complicity in the Lockerbie bombings, and paid each victim’s family millions of dollars. 

[Editor's note: Actually, Qaddafi never admitted to any complicity in the Lockerbie bombing. A deal was struck with the British and American governments, to allow them to make a statement to the media, as they saw fit, in which they said that he, or Libya, had done so. However, the actual and only statement made from Libya was taking "responsibility for the actions of its officials", and paying millions of dollars to the families of the victims, as a charitable gesture, which the British and Americans would twists as "compensation" -- repeating the formula used over the alleged Libyan shooting of Woman Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher, which also did not lead to any good for Libya. Same mistake twice.]

Another bit of credible evidence I came across was that Qaddafi had recently resisted the corrupted Federal Reserve notes from the US/international corporate banking system, insisting instead of payment in gold for Libyan oil. He had just wandered into the same dangerous area that had gotten our own President Kennedy assassinated.

At the same time I also learned about the organization that has been behind the “Arab Springs” uprisings. This organization follows the directives of the UN and CIA (which is in turn controlled by international oil, pharmaceutical and banking corporations). This organization works to start seemingly spontaneous revolutions in countries where the existing government needs to be broken down to allow easier access to oil and resources. This organization is not above murder to complete its objectives, attacking protesters in Egypt. Similar violence happened in Libya, and was blamed on Qaddafi, mainly by AlJazeera, a known propaganda channel, and its American cohort CNN.

It is interesting how the protests against the unconstitutional banking practices of the US, are being used by the monied interests to push for greater government regulation and greater solidarity for the New World Order instead of what the US protesters are really asking for: dissolution of the central bank and the return to Kennedy’s silver standard.

My research continued. Every time I heard someone speak of Qaddafi’s evil I asked them about it. Why don’t you like Qaddafi? What has he done? How do you know? What I discovered is these people expressing hatred for the man really had no idea why they were doing so. It always came down to what they had heard on the news and never questioned.

On the internet, I encountered people from around the world, and a wide variety of opinions on the Libya situation. Some claimed to be Libyan and expressed contempt for Qaddafi, but I could not get any conclusive information from these individuals about how he had mistreated them.

Commonly I hear people say, “Well, he was a dictator and we should work towards a future where dictators are a thing of the past.” People who say this type of thing are thoroughly brainwashed. They are easily swayed by words and labels. Our leaders are no less dictators, put in power through fake elections to further the goals of a monied elite. I am not pro dictatorships and if you were to talk to me at any length you would see that I am not even pro government. But one thing government is, is the creation of human beings and a reflection of them and their culture. Qaddafi’s Libya may not have seemed progressive enough to some, but it was a long progression from where the country had started. The government of Libya belonged to the people of Libya, and the right to make any changes to it was the right of Libyan people alone, not outsiders like the UN and NATO. Certainly not the United States.

Remember, the Native Americans were demonized as vicious warlords and ritual killers which comforted the European invaders as they gleefully slaughtered the natives into near extinction. I see the same thing happening now towards the Middle East and Africa. Our media portrays them as simple, uncivilized, under evolved and in dire need of western intervention to bring them up to speed with the current times. The truth of the matter is countries like Libya have been progressing far more quickly and further than the west. The Muslim religion forbids such banking practices as charging interest on loans and printing money backed with debt. It is this, and not the threat of “jihad”, that is the reason our political leaders feel that the Muslim world as something that must be stopped.

image

On October 20, the day before my birthday, Muammar Qaddafi was murdered [Editor: See note at the end of this article, it is commonly held that Muammar Qaddafi was murdered as that is what was broadcast on TV (tell-lie-vision) around the world] in the most brutal display of human aggression on one person that I have ever witnessed. If we are to believe the ‘official narrative’, he was shot, beaten and raped with a long piece of metal before being killed.

Those whose worldview is prepackaged by the likes of CNN and the CIA were rejoicing in this barbaric death, while others like myself recognized the true horror of what had happened. One of the wealthiest independent nations of the Earth had fallen to the global tyranny.

If Qaddafi had done any wrong to his people, the world will never know. Murdering him is pretty much an admission of guilt on the part of the UN and NATO, since he was forever silenced. If there ever were victims of Qaddafi, they were robbed of their chance for real justice, the exposure of wrong doing which can never happen now. The credibility of the “new” Libya has been destroyed, since they have allied themselves with the war criminals of the world. When someone victimizes others and is evil I want the whole world to know about it, especially if it is an international affair.

Why the secrets?

Why kill him and not let him stand trial?

Why have I not found one credible shred of evidence supporting the accusations that he was killing his own people and committing genocide even though I have been looking? The manner in which Qaddafi was tortured and killed is no more justice for any “victims” than if he had met his demise being hit by a train. Exposure beyond a doubt, revealed to the whole world, that would have been justice.

Justice might have ended up being Qaddafi exposing the globalists’ agenda. Qaddafi was killed. The world was robbed. We live in a much darker place for it. If reading this offends you, or if you strongly disagree with me, I invite you to share with me credible evidence that Qaddafi deserved the fate he met with. As a truth-seeker, I want to know, and realize that I probably never will. Until then, I will remember Muammar Qaddafi as yet another brave patriot, murdered by global tyranny.

[Mathaba Editor's note: The good author and others will be pleased to note that the reality is that Muammar Qaddafi is still alive, safe and well. Ali Al-Andalus of Sirte, who has a striking resemblance to Muammar, although shorter among other differences, was murdered in the most horrific manner, as is the custom of the US-British-French intelligence supported "Al-Qaida" NATO-rebel "rat" gangs in Libya.]

About H.L. Martin

I am a multi-media artist and writer living in upstate New York.

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A Message to Congress! REVOLUTION NOW!


A Message to Congress! REVOLUTION NOW!

World Revolution is NOW!

fav like share peace Press TV RT protests people uprising Jihad Egypt Cairo, Qatif Iran Islamic Republic Ron Paul occupy Wall Street America shot protester bloody fighting police military corrupt scaf Tahrir square news best illuminati freemasons united overthrow street battles 11/21/11 11/22 11/23 11/24 11/25 11 November 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

The Devaluation of Human Life


The Devaluation of Human Life

They claim to act on our behalf, but they do not answer to us. They kill in the interests of the state, not the people. They rationalize it. They convince themselves of obvious contradictions and shrug it of without the slight bit of irony. 

A Nobel Peace Prize winner being hailed as a promoter of unity and peace even as he supports the overthrow and execution of a head of state by terrorists and extremists.

It is a good deal more than hypocrisy, when psychopaths rule the world…

Libya says ex-deputy PM suspect in general’s killing


Libya says ex-deputy PM suspect in general’s killing

29/11/2011

TRIPOLI,(Reuters) – Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Monday a former NTC deputy prime minister was suspected of involvement in the killing of one of the rebel movement‘s most senior military commanders.

General Abdel Fattah Younes was killed by his own side in July, an incident that caused deep rifts inside the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi‘s rule. The naming of the suspects risks reviving those divisions.

At a news conference broadcast on Libyan television, NTC chief military prosecutor Yussef Al-Aseifr named Ali El-Essawi as chief suspect. Essawi served as the NTC’s interim deputy prime minister until he stepped down earlier this year.

“The number one suspect in the investigation is the former deputy head of (the NTC) executive office Ali Abdelaziz Saad Al-Essawi,” Aseifr said.

“There are seven people suspected of involvement in Abdel Fattah Younes’s killing. Three have been arrested and security forces are looking for the others,” said Aseifr, who was standing alongside NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil.

Essawi denied involvement in a phone call to the local Libya Awalen television station. “I never signed any decision relating to Abdel Fattah Younes,” he said. “Everybody in Libya wants the truth.”

Before he was made deputy prime minister, Essawi had acted as the NTC’s de facto foreign minister and toured foreign capitals rallying support for the rebellion before Gaddafi was forced from power in August.

Younes was for years part of Gaddafi’s inner circle. He defected at the start of the uprising against Gaddafi’s rule in February and became the military chief of the rebellion.

The circumstances of his killing remain murky, but it is known that he was killed after NTC leaders summoned him back from the front line to Benghazi, the eastern city where at the time the council had its headquarters.

His death exposed splits within the anti-Gaddafi movement, especially between Islamists and secularists, with different factions accusing each other of involvement.

http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=27480

Thousands of prisoners in Libya denied legal process – UN


Thousands of prisoners in Libya denied legal process – UN

Libyan revolutionaries are holding an estimated 7000 prisoners who have no access to legal process because police and the courts are not functioning, according to a United Nations report.
The report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is the first UN assessment of the situation in Libya since the end of the eight-month civil war earlier this year.
It says some of the detainees held in prisons and makeshift detention centres, most under the control of revolutionary brigades, may have been tortured.
Many of those being held are sub-Saharan Africans suspected of being mercenaries hired by the Gaddafi regime, the BBC reports.
Mr Ban says he believes the leaders of the new Libya are committed to building a society based on respect for human rights.
He says achieving this requires the earliest possible action, however difficult the circumstances.

Copyright © 2011, Radio New Zealand

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/92460/thousands-of-prisoners-in-libya-denied-legal-process-un

Libya leaders acknowledge abuse of prisoners


Libya leaders acknowledge abuse of prisoners

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libya’s new leaders said Tuesday that some prisoners held by revolutionary forces have been abused, but insisted the mistreatment was not systematic and pledged to tackle the problem.

The acknowledgment comes a day after the U.N. released a report a detailing alleged torture and ill treatment in lockups controlled by the forces that overthrew dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The report says that Libyan revolutionaries still hold about 7,000 people, many of them sub-Saharan Africans who are in some cases accused or suspected of being mercenaries hired by Gadhafi.

Libya’s new leaders, who received the backing of the U.S., France, Britain and other countries in their fight against Gadhafi, are eager to assure the world of their commitment to democracy and human rights.(***yes right!! in their dreams) Interior Minister Fawzy Abdul-Ali acknowledged that abuses have occurred but said the new government is trying to eliminate them.

“We are trying our best to establish a legitimate system that is authorized to make arrests, detain and interrogate people,” he told The Associated Press. “We are trying to minimize the possibilities of violations taking place.”

Abdul-Ali said the government plans to create special security units under the authority of the central government that will handle prisoners. Leaders are working to bolster “the authority of the new government all across the country,” he said.

Responding to the U.N. report, Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur also acknowledged there are problems with detainees.

“Are there illegal detentions in Libya? I am afraid there are,” Abushagur told a news conference. He said any abuses have been committed by militias not yet controlled by central authorities.

Libya’s new leaders have struggled to stamp their authority on the country since toppling Gadhafi’s regime. One of the greatest challenges still facing the leadership is how to rein in the dozens of revolutionary militias that arose during the war and now are reluctant to disband or submit to central authority.

Abushagur also denied some news reports claiming that Libyan leaders are arming rebels in Syria.

“We are with the Syrian people but we are not going to send fighters or arms,” he said.

Also Tuesday, dozens of people with relatives who went missing in Libya’s recent civil war rallied in front of the main government building to demand that authorities speed up the search for their loved ones.

Most of the missing were fighters, but there are also civilians among them. There are an estimated 20,000 people missing, according to the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Authorities have started trying to find and identify the missing but face many problems. For one, they need to build a DNA laboratory from scratch to match genetic material from living people with the remains in mass graves now spread across this large desert country.

___

Associated Press writer Rami al-Shaheibi in Tripoli contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/libya-leaders-acknowledge-abuse-prisoners-124133411.html

Chavez Repatriates Venezuela’s Foreign Gold Reserves


Chavez Repatriates Venezuela‘s Foreign Gold Reserves

Vehicles carrying gold bars drive past Miraflores Palace in Caracas.

The gold was escorted through Caracas by troops and armoured vehicles.  It was unloaded from a plane and taken under heavy guard to the Central Bank in the capital, Caracas.

President Chavez has explained the move as an act of sovereignty that will protect Venezuela’s reserves from global economic turbulence. However, critics say it is expensive and unnecessary.

Venezuela plans to bring home around 160 tonnes of gold, worth more than $11bn (£7bn). “The gold is returning to where it was always meant to be: the vaults of the Central Bank of Venezuela,” Mr Chavez said.

Hundreds of troops lined the route to Caracas as a convoy of armoured security trucks, escorted by military vehicles, carried the bullion to the Bank.

‘Historic act’

Officials said the gold had come from European countries but did not say how much was in the first shipment, citing security concerns.

Central Bank chief, Nelson Merentes, said the return of the gold to Venezuela was a “historic act”. “It has historic value, it has symbolic value, and it has financial value,” he said. “The country’s finances will be backed by autonomous wealth, so we are not subject to pressure from anyone.”

Opposition groups have criticised the move as a populist measure aimed at boosting Mr. Chavez’s popularity ahead of next October’s presidential elections, when he is seeking another term in office.

Some critics have suggested that Mr Chavez is acting out of fears that Venezuela’s overseas assets could one day be frozen by sanctions, as happened to his friend and ally, Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Most of Venezuela’s foreign gold reserves are held in London.


Propagandastan The Pentagon Is Spending Millions To Whitewash Central Asian dictatorships


Propagandastan The Pentagon Is Spending Millions To Whitewash Central Asian dictatorships

Why is the Pentagon spending tens of millions of U.S. tax dollars to whitewash the image of Central Asian dictatorships?

By David Trilling

November 23, 2011 “

FP” –  BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – When people read a news website, they don’t usually imagine that it is being run by a major producer of fighter jets and smart bombs. But when the Pentagon has its own vision of America‘s foreign policy, and the funds to promote it, it can put a $23 billion defense contractor in a unique position to report on the war on terror.

Over the past three years, a subdivision of Virginia-based General Dynamics has set up and run a network of eight “influence websites” funded by the Defense Department with more than $120 million in taxpayer money. The sites, collectively known as the Trans Regional Web Initiative (TRWI) and operated by General Dynamics Information Technology, focus on geographic areas under the purview of various U.S. combatant commands, including U.S. Central Command. In its coverage of Uzbekistan, a repressive dictatorship increasingly important to U.S. military goals in Afghanistan, a TRWI website called Central Asia Online has shown a disturbing tendency to downplay the autocracy’s rights abuses and uncritically promote its claims of terrorist threats.

Central Asia Online was created in 2008, a time when Washington’s ability to rely on Pakistan as a partner in the U.S.-led operation in Afghanistan was steadily waning. In the search for alternative land routes to supply U.S. troops, Uzbekistan seemed the best option. Nearby Iran was a non-starter, and Uzbekistan’s infrastructure — used by the Soviets to get in and out of Afghanistan during their ill-fated war there — was far superior to that of neighboring Tajikistan. Today, the U.S. military moves massive amounts of cargo across Uzbekistan. By year’s end, the Pentagon hopes to see 75 percent of all non-lethal military supplies arrive in Afghanistan via the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a web of land-based transport routes stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Amu Darya River.

Gas-rich Uzbekistan, the most populous of the formerly Soviet Central Asian republics, has been ruled since before independence in 1991 by strongman President Islam Karimov, who is regularly condemned in the West for running one of the world’s most repressive and corrupt regimes. Freedom House gives Uzbekistan the lowest possible score in its Freedom in the World report, while watchdog groups like Amnesty Internationaland Human Rights Watch have reported on widespread torture and forced child labor. The respected Russian human rights group Memorial saysKarimov holds more political prisoners than all other post-Soviet republics combined, often through an “arbitrary interpretation” of the law. The overwhelming majority of those convicted are somehow linked to Islam. Memorial has found that thousands of “Muslims whose activities pose no threat to social order and security are being sentenced on fabricated charges of terrorism and extremism.”

Nonetheless, with Pakistani-American relations at a desperate low, Washington now seems more eager than ever to make overtures to Tashkent. In the past, Karimov has responded to U.S. criticism by threatening to shut down the supply route to Afghanistan. In 2005, after Washington demanded an investigation into the massacre of hundreds of civilians in the eastern city of Andijan, he closed the American airbase at Karshi-Khanabad. So Washington’s expressions of disapproval have given way to praise. In September, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cautiously commended Tashkent for its “progress” on political freedoms, and, more significantly, President Barack Obama moved to end restrictions on military aid, in place since 2004. Then, during an Oct. 22 visit to Tashkent, Clinton thanked the Uzbek leader in person for his cooperation. A State Department official traveling with her said he believed Karimov wants to leave a democratic legacy for “his kids and his grandchildren.”

Theoretically, with the restrictions lifted, General Dynamics stands to profit. The company has already shown interest in finding clients in Central Asia, hawking its wares at a defense exposition in Kazakhstan last year. This potential self-interest casts an unflattering light on Central Asia Online’s flattering coverage of the region’s calcified dictatorships, especially Uzbekistan.

Take a March story praising Tashkent’s effort to register religious groups. The story does not mention reputable organizations’ allegations about arbitrary arrests of Christians and Muslims from unregistered groups, but cites state-affiliated clergy lauding the country’s religious freedom and praises the feared security services for acting within the law. The story ends by saying, “Uzbekistan is doing everything necessary to ensure its citizens have the proper conditions to exercise freedom of conscience.”

That is patently not so, says John Kinahan of Forum 18, an Oslo-based religious freedom watchdog: “The only thing harmonious in Uzbekistan is a constant picture of violations of just about every human right you can name, which is certainly not producing any meaningful exchange of views of what is going on or how people relate to each other.”

Reasons for fear remain abundant. On Nov. 17, a closed court near Tashkent convicted 16 men of belonging to a banned Islamist group. Independent reports say they were tortured into signing confessions. The families are despondent, unsure how they will survive without their breadwinners, who were locked away for six to 12 years.

Sometimes the website downplays abuses even contrary to concerns expressed by the U.S. government. On Sept. 13, the State Department singled out Uzbekistan as a country “of particular concern” for religious freedom, noting “serious abuses” in the government’s “campaign against extremists or those participating in underground Islamic activity.” The day before the report was released, Central Asia Online ran a story defending Tashkent, entitled, “Uzbekistan fights terror, not religion, analysts say.” The story canvased members of state-sanctioned religious groups to paint a picture of tolerance inside the country, concluding, simplistically, that “most agree with the crackdown on terror.”

“It is not possible to have any independent surveys of what people think of the situation,” says Kinahan. “Uzbekistan is a serial human rights violator. People there have a well-founded fear of expressing their true opinions … it can be dangerous.”

Particularly in its coverage related to extremism and terrorism, Central Asia Online toes Tashkent’s line and simultaneously demonstrates a level of access unheard of for other Western information gatherers. Foreign reporters, including myself, are regularly denied visas. The few who get in must work undercover, pretending to be aid workers or tourists. Local journalists have little freedom, running the risk of arrest on trumped-up charges of spying or threatening security if they stray from official viewpoints. Meanwhile, respected foreign news outlets like the Associated Press are denied accreditation; websites considered critical of the government, such as Uznews.net and FerganaNews.com, are routinely blocked. Reporters Without Borders ranked Uzbekistan 163rd out of 178 countries in the organization’s 2010 Press Freedom Index and called the country an “Internet Enemy” this year. That Central Asia Online has seemingly unfettered access to the country’s feared secret police — the SNB — is alone suspicious, suggesting collusion, says an Uzbek journalist who has written secretly for foreign news organizations.

“It looks like the website has a special and close relationship with the Uzbek government,” he told me, responding to several Central Asia Online stories on extremism. “The authors have access to officials and clerics who customarily refuse to meet independent-minded journalists; they only talk to government-affiliated journalists whose work is approved by the SNB.”

In its stories on alleged extremists, Central Asia Online does not mention documented government abuses and does not cite skeptical analysts who might question Tashkent’s claims or raise the possibility that its heavy-handed tactics serve to radicalize practicing Muslims. In an August storyabout official assertions that the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is recruiting among Uzbek labor migrants, the author, “Shakar Saadi,” cites a named SNB officer and even quotes a prisoner — a startling feat of reporting prowess, considering that the U.N. special rapporteur on torture has been denied access to Uzbekistan’s prisons for years.

Over the past two years, the budget for the TRWI websites has increased from $10.1 million to $121 million, according to DOD records. But the parties involved in the project have been reluctant to discuss details. Central Asia Online did not respond to repeated requests for comment, sent via the website, over the course of six months. General Dynamics Information Technology referred questions to U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). A spokesman for SOCOM in Tampa would not provide details on why the budget grew so quickly. He said the websites’ content is coordinated with regional embassies, but “developed in support of a set of combatant command-assigned objectives.”

Representatives of all five U.S. embassies in Central Asia, however, told me they have nothing to do with Central Asia Online. In Tajikistan, where the U.S. embassy has a commendable record of defending media freedoms, a press attaché volunteered that Central Asia Online does not even receive the embassy’s press releases. A spokesman for another embassy in the region said he had never heard of the site.

All this raises the question: Is U.S. taxpayer money being given to a for-profit military contractor to shill for a Central Asian dictator, just because he’s a useful ally in the war on terror?

“It’s disturbing, to say the least,” says Alexander Cooley, a political scientist at Barnard College who writes frequently about America’s military footprint in Central Asia. “I would not expect anyone who is otherwise involved as a contractor or a subcontractor for U.S. security agencies to provide objective news analysis of terrorism. Part of covering terrorism means covering both the emergence of legitimate threats, but also covering how the specter of terror is used as political cover for governments to clamp down on political opponents,” Cooley said. He called the “fluff” on Central Asia Online “just propaganda.”

The bitter irony is that, through its uncritical support for Tashkent’s anti-extremism measures, the Pentagon is implicitly endorsing policies believed by many to foment discontent and radicalization in a country that borders Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Tashkent is happy to use this renewed engagement with Washington to boost its image.

The TRWI websites do not hide their affiliation with the U.S. military, stating it clearly in their “About” sections. The original Pentagon solicitationcalled the sites — including the Southeast European Times and Magharebia – “tools in support of strategic and long-term U.S. Government goals and objectives,” not professional journalism. Yet for a small outlet covering an obscure corner of the world, Central Asia Online does relatively well. The site has published an average of 71 stories per month this year, which, a SOCOM spokesman told me, garner some 168,000 article reads, 85,000 unique visitors, and 380 reader comments per month.

The target is “online audiences” in the five post-Soviet Central Asian republics, plus Afghanistan and Pakistan, though the material — mostly about security and published in English, Russian, Urdu, and Farsi — also seeps into local newspapers, websites, and news aggregators around the world, expanding the site’s readership. Though it is the responsibility of those outlets to attribute, many, at least in Central Asia, do not, billing the stories as original, local reporting, rather than DOD propaganda.

Apart from its security focus, Central Asia Online sometimes reports on sports, business, and civil society — also uncritically, careful to cite government sources on message.

An early July feature, “Uzbekistan proposes more government openness,” praised Karimov’s instructions to Uzbek officials to write more press releases, which the story said would ensure public access to information about state agencies and regulate procedures for informing the public about their activities.” Local journalists (the kind cleared by the SNB) and officials told Central Asia Online how free information will blossom in Uzbekistan thanks to Karimov’s decree. The story did not mention, however, Karimov’s June 27 warning that “destructive forces” trawling the Internet are “controlling young minds.”

In the weeks following Karimov’s speech, while Central Asia Online was praising his country’s “openness,” Tashkent was blocking dozens of real news portals including the New York Times and Human Rights Watch. Zealous officials even made sure that, when a state-sponsored festivalcelebrating the .UZ Internet domain was held in Tashkent, no one could get too excited: dozens of websites and international media portals wereblocked. Throughout it all, Central Asia Online remained open and accessible in Uzbekistan.

David Trilling is the Central Asia editor of EurasiaNet.orgwhich is also blocked in Uzbekistan. Follow him at @dtrilling.


Will the UN Insist on Fair Trials for Ex-Regime Loyalists in Libya?


Will the UN Insist on Fair Trials for Ex-Regime Loyalists in Libya?

By Franklin Lamb

November 21, 2011 “Information Clearing House” — – Benghazi, Libya — An affable gentleman, “Mahmoud” ushered this observer into the Benghazi People’s Court (Mahkamat al-Sha’b) and showed me the freshly painted courtroom where on December 19, 2006, the current NTC leader and long term CIA favorite, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, twice upheld death sentences by firing squad against a Palestinian doctor, Ashraf al-Hujuj, and five Bulgarian nurses Kristiyana Valtcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka, and Snezhana Dimitrova. The death sentences were requested by the Libyan prosecutor in his opening statement four months earlier, in the final appeal in the fake HIV show trial case # 607/2003 held at the criminal court in Benghazi.

The appellate judge in the case was none other than the current head of the NATO-installed Libyan National Transition Council (NTC)  Mustafa Abdul Jalil, whose formal legal education consisted of sitting in on some Sharia law classes. Following his appellate decision in the case, and for other services rendered to the former regime, Jalil was rewarded with the post of Minister of Justice. He served loyally in that position until American associates encouraged the intensely ambitious  Minister to resign on February 24, 2011, the day he joined the Benghazi based uprising, as “leader.”

In the Benghazi nurses case, “Judge” Jalil knew the defendants were innocent and had been regularly and severely tortured during years of incarceration and forced into making false confessions which they later recanted. He also knew that the families of the false government witnesses against the “Benghazi Six” had been threatened with death if their relative failed to testify that it was the defendants who injected 426 Libyan children with HIV at the al-Fateh hospital in Benghazi. Jalil also knew, as the Libyan and International medical community knew, that insanitary conditions at the hospital caused the spreading of the HIV virus which originated in Benghazi from African guest workers, well before the arrival of the Palestinian and Bulgarian humanitarian medical staff.

During his “judicial review”, Jalil ignored the most elementary rules of criminal trial procedure and did not appear to grasp the fact that without procedural rights no accused person possesses substantive rights.

From day one of the “Benghazi Six” proceedings, which spanned more than five years, it was a political exercise. The same is certain to be the case at the opening of any trial conducted in Libya of any high profile ex-regime loyalist including Saif al Isam, Abdullah al-Senussi, Abu Zeid Dorda, former Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, former vice foreign minister Khaled Kiam, and others. If their trial is held in Libya, it is not at all certain that they will still be alive when the courtroom proceedings begin. This is because of the current lawlessness and political jockeying among NTC power centers and a widespread thirst across Libya today for revenge which trump international notions favoring just trials.

Jalil who recently announced that men in Libya will be allowed four wives because the “New Libya” is going to strictly follow Sharia law and four wives is what the Koran allows, wants the trials held in Libya.  He will try to convince the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo who is currently visiting Libya on behalf of the ICC that Libya should be the venue for Gadhafi regime trials and not The Hague.  Perhaps Jalil will tell Ocampo not to worry about fair trials in Libya because one area in particular in which Libyan laws have been inconsistent with Sharia is in the penal law.  Punishments under the Gadhafi regime were lighter than those mandated by traditional Islamic Hudud deterrent punishments, which Jalil is reported to favor but current Justice Ministry officials say current punishments, not Hudud will be applied.

Ocampo’s task will be to explain the legal steps to officials in Tripoli, and try to convince them that The Hague is the better option for the coming trials. Ultimately, it is up to the ICC judges backed by the UN whether to hand over the cases against Saif al Islam and Abdullah al Senussi to the NTC.

Jalil will have the White House and NATO backing him on this issue.  Indeed, yesterday, 11/21/11, UN Ambassador Susan Rice beat Ocampo to the punch so to speak and showed up here in Libya to flamboyantly announce that the US will not pressure Libya to send Seif al Islam to the ICC at The Hague, an international criminal court whose jurisdiction the Obama Administration has refused to accept but which 119 countries have.

What the White House and NATO want is for former key Gadhafi loyalists like Seif al Islam to be silenced ( reminding one of Saddam, Osama and Muammar) before they can reveal criminal dealings by NATO country leaders.  Chances are the jailed defendants will be killed unless the UN Security Council, which allowed the destruction of Libya via UNSC Resolution 1973, intervenes to uphold UN humanitarian principles.

Returning to the subject of my courtroom usher, who currently works in Benghazi as a NTC liaison officer with some of NATO’s still active special units, he showed me the large ornate Italian style courtroom window which, like the courtroom, was also freshly painted. Wiping an index finger on the window ledge to show me its dust free condition, he explained:  “As you can see with our newly painted courtroom we are now ready to bring these dogs to justice and we don’t want any foreign interference in our country. We can take care of our own problems.”  Speechless, I kept my thoughts to myself which included that had my guide’s new attitude about foreign interference prevailed nine months ago Libya would not have experienced the scores of thousands killed, wounded or whose lives were disrupted, the latter affecting Libya’s total population.

The above events, the show trial and equating a painted courtroom with readiness to administer justice, make plain to this observer than Libya in not yet ready to conduct fair criminal trials, not for the 16,000 current detainees,  (approximately 3000 still in prison from the previous regime, and close to 13,000 jailed by  Libya’s claimed liberators.) Libya currently lacks the capacity and perhaps agreement about what a fair trial would even be. It appears that currently a fair trial will not be conducted for high profile former regime loyalists.

Part of the reason is that today in Libya, the prevailing political, and legal dicta comes not from Gadhafi’s little Green book, volume I of which was published in 1976, or the engraved words outside UN HQ at Turtle Bay, New York, from Isaiah 2:4:  “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”  Rather today’s clarion in Libya trumpets a quotation from Mao Tse-Tung’s Little Red Book published in 1964, and it’s as true today as ever it was: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Despite sanctimonious NATO calls for the nearly four dozen militia, with more forming every month, to turn in their weapons, most of which NATO indirectly supplied, Libya’s armed gangs are rearming, increasing their rank and file numbers and expanding the scope and the variety of “their security parameters”, all designed for maximizing their political power in the continuing turbulent period as new and weak governments will rise and collapse here.

Key militias groups like the Zintanis, who captured Seif, or the Misratans, who killed Muammar and the most organized groups, which are Islamist, have organizational networks that are supporting their demands for major posts in the new government. Today’s expected announcement by interim Prime Minister Abdul Rahim al-Keib, of a new interim government, is considered a starting point by these stronger militias in the process of maneuvering themselves into full control.

This absence of control over the militias is only too evident in the treatment of captured former regime captives and towns. Reports of score settling are heard everywhere. Ignoring the claimed authority of the NTC, militias continue to ransack towns formally loyal to Gadhafi as they mete out bloody reprisals even on rival militia opposed to the former regime. Instead of handing over weapons from captured government arsenals to the authorities, militias are taking them back to their hometowns. So far the interim government has been unable to exert any real authority over a country awash with weapons and armed men.

This observer was approached last week in the lobby of a five-star Tripoli hotel by an Israeli business man who was jokingly complaining, “Why don’t these people speak Hebrew? Maybe I should open a school.” Like many of his countrymen and hundreds from NATO countries, Israelis are having no trouble getting visas here. It is not the same for Africans who are being held in herds at the borders until groups of hundreds can be processed by well-paid construction and domestic workers agents who will continue the Lebanon style “ keep their passports and pay them pittance,” slave labor practices.   

The droves arriving in Libya to do business, some of whom this observer have spoken with, will pretty much accept any kind of business if the bottom line is attractive. “God willing we can make this country  into another Dubai”, one fellow opined as he asked if I knew any real estate agents who could help him buy up Mediterranean beach frontage cheap for a tourist resort.

Even friends of the Chadian princesses  who work with the traditional Saharan medicine specialist Dr. Fatma, who more or less cured my leg in late August, and whose staff still administers my necessary outpatient physical therapies, are getting into the weapons business.

Today the picture of Libya is of a country split into deadly rival factions. Cambridge University’s Tarak Barkawi, accurately describes Libya as a country “shot through with rivalries, jealousies and blood debts.”  The NTC is  itself is a disparate collection of defected regime elements, Islamists, secular expatriates and Berbers, many deeply suspicious of NTC leader Jalil who has never adequately explained his role in the July assassination  of his rival,  former Interior Minister General Younis  after the latter joined the rebels.

An international legal team is working on a brief for the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court and the Libya National Transitional Council, laying out arguments to be used on behalf of former Gadhafi regime loyalists in an effort to convince these bodies that the facts and law of this case warrant moving their trials from Libya to The Hague.

The brief is expected to be made available publicly on December 15, 2011. Meanwhile the UN Security Council must support the ICC and assure that Libyan show trials for former regime loyalist that have been indicted are avoided by conducting their trials in The Hague.

  Franklin Lamb   fplamb@gmail.com

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29791.htm

 

Libya News Update 30/11/2011


Libya News Update 30/11/2011

An operation of green fighters in Tripoli

Posted on 30/11/2011 at 10:58 

ALGERIA ISP / Zangetna According to the fighters of the liberation of Libya performed with silent weapons, the rebel “Radouane Abdessalem Ambiya” who was at home along with two other rebel battalion of Tripoli. This rebel was the person who betrayed the army green by providing information to the rebels who killed 28 Libyan soldiers of the army of the Libyan.

Two foreign soldiers killed

Posted on 30/11/2011 at 10:34 - 

ALGERIA ISP / Zangetna According to the fighters of the cell “Raed” of the Liberation Army of Libya destroyed the large fuel tank Raes Lanouf society which is located between the industrial complex and the new oil port. Violent clashes between rebel fighters and green lasted 3 hours. Two foreign soldiers were killed.

An explosion at Souk Jomo

Posted on 30/11/2011 at 10:33 – 113 

ALGERIA ISP / Zangetna According to last night, a loud explosion shook the area Souk Jomo and exchanges of fire. The fighters of the Liberation Army of Libya intensify operations.

Internet cut in Abu Slim

Posted on 30/11/2011 at 10:32

ALGERIA ISP / According Zangetna, all telephone and internet are cut completely cut off near Abu Slim in Tripoli.

Clashes in Tripoli

Posted on 30/11/2011 at 10:31

ALGERIA ISP / Zangetna According to last night in Tripoli, Al Andalus area, violent clashes between fighters of the Liberation Army of Libya and the rebels. And other fighting near the school Kortoba.

http://www.algeria-isp.com/depeches/politique-libye/201111-D1668/libye-affrontements-tripoli-novembre-2011.html