Robert Fisk has just left Tripoli:
While dark humour has never been a strong quality in Libyans, there was one moment at Tripoli airport yesterday which proved it does exist. An incoming passenger from a Libyan Arab Airlines flight at the front of an immigration queue bellowed out: “And long life to our great leader Muammar Gaddafi.” Then he burst into laughter – and the immigration officers did the same.
Sigh:
No sooner was the embargo lifted, than German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder landed in Tripoli with an entourage of 25 businessmen. In passing he praised what he called the ‘political change’ in Libya. But his main reason for visiting was the promotion of German business. Openly so, and with the support of much of the German political spectrum, from his own center-left SPD, through the pro-business FPD to the conservative CDU. So he shook hands, made introductions, closed deals. He was photographed in an elaborate tent, and at an oil well, looking equally out-of place in both locations.What didn’t emerge until four years later was that, alongside oil and engineering negotiations, Schroeder was fixing up a deal whereby elite German commandos would train the Libyan security services.
This caused controversy when it emerged in 2008. Not as military support for a dictator — the €43m of German jamming equipment bought by Libya in the last 2 years has raised few eyebrows — but because it was coming being provided by German security personnel.
In fact, the Byzantine structure of the deal shows everybody knew they were bending the rules to breaking point. The German officers would receive €15,000 each, paid by a private security firm which in turn got a €1.6m cheque from Libya. They would take time off from their elite anti-terrorist unit. Their superiors thought they were vacationing in Tunisia, though the German embassy in Libya knew their real purpose. The officers set up shop in a barracks in Tripoli, where for 6 months they taught their Libyan counterparts how to storm buildings, board ships and operate out of helicopters.
Nir Rosen understands how the Middle East has changed:
Its hard to imagine the revolutions sweeping the Middle East happening without al Jazeera. Yes Tunisians started their revolution, taking the first steps, and it took Jazeera a couple of weeks before it focused on Tunisia. But once its started and Jazeera was on its war footing it could connect activists and demonstrators from around the country, it could disseminate information to other parts of country. Now middle class people in Tunisia who were told by their parents not to get involved in politics could learn about what was happening elsewhere and feel that somebody else was also expressing their grievances, or other grievances, and it was ok for them to express them too.
Once the revolution starts Jazeera shapes people’s political opinions and plans, it asks demonstrators and activists and leaders what they will do, will they form a political party, this is what one side says, what do you say in response, etc, thus shaping political dialogue and facilitating it. In Egypt, when established opposition parties and Muslim Brothers went to Umar Suleiman to cut a deal, Jazeera played a key role in scuttling this betrayal of the revolution by going back to the demonstrators and airing their demans and challenging the opposition leaders. Jazeera asked people what they wanted if Mubarak left, if they wanted Suleiman, etc and it pressured political leaders who were more inclined to compromise with the regime. Jazeera forced them to hear what the street was saying and prevented them from compromising.
God forbid the Australian government took a lead on an international issue rather than simply following the US:
A Sydney council’s decision to boycott Israel has been raised in the upper echelons of Australian diplomacy.
The Greens-controlled Marrickville Council voted in December to join a global boycott of all Israeli products and services in protest of its treatment of Palestinians.
Senior Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official David Stuart said Israel’s ambassador to Australia had raised the issue with him during a meeting several weeks ago.
“He presented me with some arguments that this was against for example WTO/GATT obligations,” Mr Stuart, referring to trade agreements, told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday.
“I think he understood it had no endorsement whatsoever by the Australian government.”
DFAT Secretary Dennis Richardson said he was concerned a local council was trying its hand at foreign affairs.
“It’s wacko stuff,” he said.
Throw money as its citizens. Washington has no problem at all with the brutal rule of King Abdullah. It’s all about oil, baby:
The good old days of America just invading, bombing and regime changing when she wanted. The days of empire are wonderful for armchair generals directing the carnage.
And then you have neo-con hacks like Michael Ledeen (the great man detailed here) who simply want to use American weaponary to kill people.
Here’s his latest advice over Libya:
Since our leaders evidently have no clue what to do in Libya, let’s give them a few ideas. The basic rules are easy: don’t do anything that is likely to make things worse, and you can forget about “negotiated settlements” once the bloodshed has reached the dimensions now engulfing Libya. Finally, forget the UN (see point 1).
The first thing to do is deprive Qadaffi of as many instruments of mass murder as possible. The most obvious of these is the Libyan Air Force, which is a small and outdated collection of aircraft, many of which belong in a museum. More specifically: some French F-1 fighters; some old Sukhoi’s, some old MIGs, and some helicopter gunships. (h/t Steve Bryen)
Destroy them. It’s easy. Our Air Force can probably wipe them out in less than half an hour. If we want to play “good ally” we can invite other NATO countries to join in. It seems the Brits are available (as they should be, after their disgusting liberation of the Lockerbie bomber), and I’ll bet you anything that the French and Italians, both of whom have decades of complicity with Qadaffi, will be happy to participate. And the French have the Foreign Legion in the area, if memory serves.
That won’t “solve” the problem, but it will ease the people’s pain, and it might lessen the dreadful impression we have created, especially during the Obama years, that we only talk or negotiate slow-acting sanctions; we don’t go in for decisive action (that is so Bush).
The destruction of the Libyan aircraft is a good start, but it would be nice to do more. Once upon a time, the CIA cultivated ambitious military officers (typically colonels) in such places for emergencies such as this. We’d give the word and they’d execute a coup.
I am not up to speed on the capabilities of the clandestine service, but I doubt they have any colonels on the shelf ready to move. I’d love to be wrong, needless to say, and I’m rooting for them, in the unlikely event the president pushes that button. Even if CIA can’t do it, maybe our military guys have someone.
Yes, I know it’s meddling in another country’s “internal affairs,” and a strike against the Libyan Air Force may be considered an act of war in some lawyers’ offices. But if we did those things we’d save a lot of innocent lives and enhance our chances of being more effective in the future.
We should have done it in Sudan years ago, by the way. We’d have saved a lot of southerners and speeded up the whole process.
Finally, the president should issue an executive order requiring the removal of all those bumper stickers that read “war never solved anything.” As the Marines say, except for fascism, Nazism, communism and warlordism.
This footage allegedly shows forces loyal to Gaddafi attacking homes in the city of Benghazi:
What does it take for mercenaries to stop getting contracts in occupied nations?
More than a year has passed since the State Department decided to drop its contract [1] with the security firm protecting the US embassy in Kabul, following an international scandal featuring drunken debauchery [2] fit for a Van Wilder flick. But the company that introduced the world to vodka butt-shots is still on the job—and it doesn’t seem to have plans to stand down anytime soon. Long after the expiration of its initial contract, in fact, ArmorGroup North America is currently hiring [3] more guards to protect the Kabul embassy.
The firm sparked controversy in September 2009, when a Washington-based watchdog group sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [4]highlighting a list of violations by the company, from a chronic guard shortage to the hiring of personnel who couldn’t speak English and would be unable to communicate with their colleagues in an emergency. But the most shocking charges concerned what the Project on Government Oversight [5] called a “Lord of the Flies environment”—hazing and wild partying depicted in a series of graphic photographs [6] showing members of the Kabul embassy security force drunk, half-naked, and engaged in an array of NSFW behavior.
Embassygate tainted not just ArmorGroup North America (AGNA) and its parent company, the security conglomerate G4S, but the State Department, too, leading to investigations by Congress and State’s inspector general. In the years leading up to the scandal, it turned out, the State Department had repeatedly found fault with the company’s performance—at one point stating in an internal memo that “the security of the US Embassy in Kabul is in jeopardy” as a result—but failed to fire AGNA. A former high-level AGNA employee also came forward to say that he’d warned [7] the State Department about “lewd, aberrant, and sexually deviant behavior” by the company’s recruits more than two years before this conduct made global headlines. Again, no action was taken.
Opponents of Britain’s arms trade are “completely at odds with reality”, David Cameron said, as he hit out critics of his three-day visit to the Gulf.
In a staunch defence of Britain’s arms exports, as he tours the region with a group of senior defence manufacturers, Cameron said it was wrong to leave small Gulf countries to fend for themselves.
Speaking in Kuwait, which is marking the 20th anniversary of the expulsion of Saddam Hussein’s forces, Cameron said: “The idea that we should expect small and democratic countries like Kuwait to be able to manufacture all their means of defence seems to me completely at odds with reality.”
The prime minister indicated irritation with his critics when was asked during a press conference with his Kuwaiti counterpart how he could promote democracy and reform in the Middle East while travelling with businessmen selling arms to the region.
Cameron said: “I simply don’t understand how you can’t understand how democracies have a right to defend themselves. I would have thought this argument is particularly powerful right here in Kuwait which, 20 years ago, was invaded by a thuggish bullying neighbour who disrespected your sovereignty, invaded your country and destroyed parts of your capital city.
He added: “Are we honestly saying that for all time, forever and a day, that countries like Kuwait have to manufacture and maintain every single part of their own defences? I think very few people considering that argument for any time would give it any consideration at all.”
…The UK is among the world’s most successful defence exporters. A Freedom of Information release obtained by Campaign Against the Arms Trade shows that in the 10 years between 2000 and 2009 the total value of UK defence exports was $93bn – second only to the United States. The same document lists Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait as “key” defence and security markets in 2010 and 2011.
The US had no issue with Gaddafi’s brutality and corruption as long as the oil kept flowing. Fossil fuel hunger has turned us into leeches:
After New Year’s Day 2009, Western media reported that Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, had paid Mariah Carey $1 million to sing just four songs at a bash on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.
In the newspaper he controlled, Seif indignantly denied the report — the big spender, he said, was his brother, Muatassim, Libya’s national security adviser, according to an American diplomatic cable from the capital, Tripoli.
It was Muatassim, too, the cable said, who had demanded $1.2 billion in 2008 from the chairman of Libya’s national oil corporation, reportedly to establish his own militia. That would let him keep up with yet another brother, Khamis, commander of a special-forces group that “effectively serves as a regime protection unit.”
As the Qaddafi clan conducts a bloody struggle to hold onto power in Libya, cables obtained by WikiLeaks offer a vivid account of the lavish spending, rampant nepotism and bitter rivalries that have defined what a 2006 cable called “Qadhafi Incorporated,” using the State Department’s preference from the multiple spellings for Libya’s troubled first family.
The glimpses of the clan’s antics in recent years that have reached Libyans despite Col. Qaddafi’s tight control of the media have added to the public anger now boiling over. And the tensions between siblings could emerge as a factor in the chaos in the oil-rich African country.
…
After Colonel Qaddafi abandoned his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction in 2003, many American officials praised his cooperation. Visiting with a congressional delegation in 2009, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut told the leader and his party-loving national security adviser, Muatassim, that Libya was “an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.”
Which private companies are salivating over the prospect of establishing an industry in Australia to turn a profit? And are indigenous Australians meant to simply disappear and accept this gross destruction of their land?
For the first time Greens MP Adam Bandt will vote against a government bill in Federal Parliament today and seek to highlight the governments failure to properly consult traditional owners about plans for a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory.
The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010, which sets up the legal regime for a radioactive waste dump at Muckaty north of Tennant Creek, will be debated today.
The planned law overrides all State and Territory legislation that could affect the dump plan and exempts Resource Minister Ferguson from compliance with key Commonwealth environment and Indigenous protections. The Greens in the Senate have previously strongly opposed the legislation.
Mr Bandt will move an amendment to delay passage of the bill until Minister Ferguson consults with Traditional Owners who are opposed to the dump. This pre-requisite recommendation from an earlier Senate Inquiry into the dump laws has been completely ignored by Minister Ferguson.
“It is a year since this bill was first introduced yet the Minister has still not met with the traditional owners who are the target of this legislation. If Minister Ferguson wants to dump nuclear waste on their land, he should have the courtesy and the courage to first front the community”, Greens MP Adam Bandt said today.
“Instead the government is attempting to ram this bill through the Parliament before legal proceedings by Traditional Owners opposed to the dump begin in the Federal Court this Friday.”
“The truncated House committee inquiry into this legislation conducted over the summer break was a cynical whitewash. There were no public hearings. No public input and no proper investigation into the implications of this bill.”
“Martin Fergusons nuclear agenda was on display last week with his push to sell uranium to India and today he is again riding roughshod over proper process.”
“There is enormous disquiet about this whole process in both my electorate and Minister Fergusons seat in Batman. The Minister risks his reputation with Batman voters if he fails to meet with the traditional owners.”
While British writer Ian McEwan visits Israel and receives the Jerusalem Prize – despite BDS activists calling him to refuse due to mingling with a pro-settler, Zionist establishment – Jews Sans Frontieres has exclusive access to the conversation between McEwan and Israeli President Shimon Peres:
Ian McEwan: Nice meeting you, Mr. President.
Shimon Peres: Oh Ian, can I call you Ian? What a pleasure to meet you! You must know I am a great admirer of your books!
Ian McEwan: I am truly honored. Anything in particular?
Shimon Peres: you know, we used to have that Zionist song when I was young, that we would cover the homeland with “a dress of concrete and cement.” And we did it! When you look at Jerusalem today, look at the mountains. A dress of concrete and cement. Isn’t that wonderful? Your “Cement Garden” always reminds me of that.
Ian: But, Mr. President. I am not certain that this is what the book was about. I was more interested in children trying to cope with an extreme situation.
Shimon: Exactly what I meant! Weren’t we all? Children in extreme situations? I was barely passing thirty when I plotted my first false flag terrorist attack in Egypt.
Ian: I hardly think thirty qualifies as a child. But perhaps, Mr. President, you are confusing my novel with “the lord of the flies?”
Shimon: Not at all! Not at all! Just coming out of the holocaust, traumatized, really, just like those children, having to deal with Nasser’s attempts to tie down our hands with peace. Syria offering us peace. The King of Jordan ready to divide Palestine with us. The US even offering our little state a defense pact if we only agreed to make peace with Egypt. That was the time when I started my political career. You can’t imagine how lonely and endangered we felt. We were scared to death. We had to be creative. Apropos the holocaust, I really liked how you managed to insert a mention of Dachau in the very first paragraph of your speech today. That’s the thing I admire about creative types like yourself. If you ever want to be an ambassador for Israel, call me.
Ian: Oh Mr. President, I am flattered…I hardly think…oh…but there was something I wanted to discuss with you.
Shimon: Of course, Ian, I always enjoy conversations with writers. Thankfully, I don’t know how it is in Britain. But Israeli writers always enjoy the illusion that they have the ears of our politicians. Let’s walk to the pastry table and you tell me everything what’s on your mind.
Ian: It’s the settlements.
Shimon: Yes, the settlements. Terrible business. Terrible. Shortsighted. We are digging our own grave. When I started the settlement project, we had young men and women with values. They treated their Palestinian neighbors like…
Ian: You started it?
Shimon: But of course, Ian. Those were the days. Just after the Six Days War. Covering the homeland in “a dress of concrete and cement”. Fence and stockade. After 1967, we were at the beginning again. We were reborn again and then reborn again again. God has granted us a second start, to do in Judea and Samaria what the generation before us did in Jaffa and Lydda and Haifa. We were so beautiful, so energized!
Ian: I don’t know what to say.
