To me Obama's words about american leardership symbolise america's power obsession.
On 10/22/11, Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Asia Times Online > > *How the West won Libya * > > > *Pepe Escobar, Asia Times Online, Hong Kong, 22 October 2011* > > They are fighting over the carcass as vultures. The French Ministry of > Defense said they got him with a Rafale fighter jet firing over his > convoy. The Pentagon said they got him with a Predator firing a Hellfire > missile. After a wounded Colonel Muammar Gaddafi sought refuge in a > filthy drain underneath a highway - an eerie echo of Saddam Hussein's > "hole" - he was found by Transitional National Council (TNC) "rebels". > And then duly executed. > > Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a Libyan doctor who accompanied Gaddafi's body > in an ambulance and examined it, said he died from two bullets, one to > the chest, one to the head. > > The TNC - which has peddled lies, lies and more lies for months - swears > he died in "crossfire". It may have been a mob. It may have been > Mohammad al-Bibi, a 20-year-old sporting a New York Yankees baseball cap > who posed to the whole world brandishing Gaddafi's golden pistol; his > ticket perhaps to collect the hefty $20 million dangled as the bounty > for Gaddafi "dead or alive". > > It gets curioser and curioser when one remembers that this is exactly > what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her lightning visit to > Tripoli, had announced less than 48 hours before; Gaddafi should be > "captured or killed". The Fairy Queenie satisfied Clinton's wishes, who > learned about it by watching the screen of a BlackBerry - and reacting > with the semantic earthquake "Wow!" > > To the winners, the spoils. They all did it; the North Atlantic Treaty > Organization (NATO), the Pentagon and the TNC. From the minute a United > Nations resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya became a green card > to regime change, plan A was always to capture and kill him. Targeted > assassination; that's Barack Obama administration official policy. There > was no plan B. > > *Let me bomb you to protection * > > As for how R2P ("responsibility to protect" civilians), any doubters > should cling to the explanation by NATO's secretary general Anders Fogh > Rasmussen; "NATO and our partners have successfully implemented the > historic mandate of the United Nations to protect the people of Libya." > Anyone who wants to check NATO's protection of civilians just needs to > jump on a pick-up truck and go to Sirte - the new Fallujah. > > Reactions have been quite instructive. TNC bureaucrat Abdel Ghoga went > Colosseum in the Roman Empire, saying, "The revolutionaries have got the > head of the tyrant." > > United States President Barack Obama said the death of Gaddafi means "we > are seeing the strength of American leadership across the world". That's > as "we got him" as one can possibly expect, also considering that > Washington paid no less than 80% of the operating costs of those dimwits > at NATO (over $1 billion - which Occupy Wall Street could well denounce > would be more helpful creating jobs in the US). Strange, now, to say "we > did it", because the White House always said this was not a war; it was > a "kinetic" something. And they were not in charge. > > It was up to that majestic foreign policy strategist, US Vice President > Joe Biden, to be starkly more enlightening than Obama; "In this case, > America spent $2 billion and didn't lose a single life. This is more the > prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has > in the past." > > World, you have been warned; this is how the empire will deal with you > from now on. > > *Feel my humanitarian love * > > So congratulations to the "international community" - which as everyone > knows is composed of Washington, a few washed-up NATO members, and the > democratic Persian Gulf powerhouses of Qatar and the United Arab > Emirates (UAE). This community, at least, loved the outcome. The > European Union (EU) hailed "the end of an era of despotism" - when up to > virtually Thursday they were caressing the helm of Gaddafi's gowns; now > they are falling over themselves in editorials about the 42-year reign > of a "buffoon". > > Gaddafi would have been a most inconvenient guest of the International > Criminal Court in The Hague, as he would have relished recalling all the > hand-kissing, the warm embraces and the juicy deals the West was begging > to clinch after he was promoted from "Mad Dog" (Ronald Reagan) to "our > bastard". He would also relish detailing all the shady backgrounds of > those opportunists now posing as "revolutionaries" and "democrats". > > As for the concept of international law, it lies in a drain as filthy as > the one Gaddafi was holed up in. Iraqi dictator Saddam at least got a > fake trial in a kangaroo court before meeting the executioner. Osama bin > Laden was simply snuffed out, assassination-style, after a territorial > invasion of Pakistan. Gaddafi went one up, snuffed out with a mix of air > war and assassination. > > Power vultures are congesting the skies. London-based Mohammed El > Senussi, the heir to the Libyan throne (King Idris was overthrown in > 1969) is ready for his close-up, having already established that he "is > a servant to Libyan people, and they decide what they want". > Translation; I want the throne. He's obviously the favorite candidate of > the counter-revolutionary House of Saud. > > And what about those Washington think-tank donkeys mumbling that this > was the Arab Spring's "Ceausescu moment"? If only the Romanian dictator > had improved his country's standard of living - in terms of free > healthcare, free education, incentives for the newlywed, etc - by a > fraction of what Gaddafi did in Libya. Plus the fact that Nicolae > Ceausescu was not deposed by NATO "humanitarian" bombing. Only the brain > dead may have swallowed the propaganda of NATO's "humanitarian" > 40,000-plus bombing - which devastated Libya's infrastructure back to > the Stone Age (Shock and Awe in slow motion, anyone?). This never had > anything to do with R2P - the relentless bombing of civilians in Sirte > proves it. > > As the top four BRIC members knew it even before the voting of UN > Resolution 1973, it was about NATO ruling the Mediterranean as a NATO > lake, it was about Africom's war against China and setting up a key > strategic base, it was about the French and the Brits getting juicy > contracts to exploit Libya's natural resources to their benefit, it was > about the West setting the narrative of the Arab Spring after they had > been caught napping in Tunisia and Egypt. > > *Listen to the barbaric whimpers * > > Welcome to the new Libya. Intolerant Islamist militias will turn the > lives of Libyan women into a living hell. Hundreds of thousands of > Sub-Saharan Africans - those who could not escape - will be ruthlessly > persecuted. Libya's natural wealth will be plundered. That collection of > anti-aircraft missiles appropriated by Islamists will be a supremely > convincing reason for the "war on terror" in northern Africa to become > eternal. There will be blood - civil war blood, because Tripolitania > will refuse to be ruled by backward Cyrenaica. > > As for remaining dictators everywhere, get a life insurance policy from > NATO Inc; Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and > Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh were clever enough to do it. We all know > there will never be R2P to liberate the Tibetans and Uyghurs, or the > people in that monster gulag Myanmar, or the people in Uzbekistan, or > the Kurds in Turkey, or the Pashtuns on both sides of the imperially > drawn Durand Line. > > We also know that change the world can believe in will be the day NATO > enforces a no-fly one over Saudi Arabia to protect the Shi'ites in the > eastern province, with the Pentagon launching a Hellfire carpet over > those thousands of medieval, corrupt House of Saud princes. > > It won't happen. Meanwhile, this is the way the West ends; with a NATO > bang, and a thousand barbaric, lawless whimpers. Disgusted? Get a Guy > Fawkes mask and raise hell. > > * */Pepe Escobar/*/ is the author of/ Globalistan: How the Globalized > World is Dissolving into Liquid War > > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0978813820/simpleproduction/ref=nosim> > (Nimble > Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the > surge > <http://www.amazon.com/Red-Zone-Blues-snapshot-Baghdad/dp/0978813898>. > His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan > > <http://www.amazon.com/Obama-Does-Globalistan-Pepe-Escobar/dp/1934840831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233698286&sr=8-1> > (Nimble > Books, 2009). > > /He may be reached at/ [email protected]. > > > (Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. > Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.) > > > *From: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MJ22Ak03.html* > ** > ** > ** > > -- > You are subscribed. 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