Waiting for the Endgame in Libya by * Franklin Lamb

The Libyan government, which is keeping statistics on NATO-caused civilian deaths, may not even be able to present its facts to the UN meeting next month. The reason is because Secretary of State Clinton has refused to grant Libya’s UN ambassador a visa.

Since this observer is not privy to any secrets around here and would not share them if he were, it’s fair enough to engage in frank discussions with former colleagues in Congress and new cyber acquaintances who work on the Hill.

I got an ear full this week from sources familiar with John Kerry’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee activities about President Obama’s semi-private views on what is happening in Libya and the President's  doubts about NATO’s role in bombing this unlucky country.

Contrary to some Washington speculation that Obama’s new Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (some Congressional staffers who know  him well good naturedly refer to his as  “Leon the Lite”)  is in charge of overseeing NATO while Obama faces a slew of political and economic problems, the reality is different.  President Obama said to be “hands on” and is closely following NATO’s use of “all necessary measures to protect civilians.” NATO bombing here, including this morning’s 5 a.m. seven bomb drop near my hotel, has become a cruel hoax for the people of Libya and all whom reject  the claimed right of NATO to” destroy as a necessity to save & protect.”

Unlike his two predecessors in the Oval office and also “VP Joe,” Obama disapproves of officials using colorful language that might offend voters. But he did reportedly tell his friend who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently that “We have stepped into a pot of s— and we need to get out of it!”
Part of Obama’s growing concern is said to be about his prospects for re-election. The Democratic National Committee sent Senator Kerry and the White House a “for your eyes only” memo on the President’s re-election prospects amid approval ratings which continue to slide amidst economic uncertainties and doubts about the Obama stewardship generally.

According to Congressional sources working on the Libya crisis, some Obama advisors see Libya as becoming another Iraq if NATO continues forbidding its rebels from negotiating with the Gaddafi government or if “the leader” is killed.

Assassinating Gaddafi  is widely believed here to be the only reason NATO continues to re-bomb, some as many as five times,   the so-called “command  and  control  center“ sites that these days could be just about anywhere in Tripoli.

Yesterday, at precisely noon, this observer was meeting with two officials at the Foreign Ministry. One is in charge of the American Bureau, and we were discussing a range of subjects.  Suddenly within a five minute period four NATO bombs exploded very loudly and close to the Foreign Ministry. I eyed the massively thick conference table we were sitting at and even considered scrambling under it—just in case — as my interlocutors quickly exited the room —without even saying ‘goodbye.’  They seemed surprised, maybe amused also, when they returned to continue the meeting and I was still sitting at the table reading my notes. “Have we all become NATO targets?” one asked, “private homes, our universities, hospitals all are legitimate targets now according to NATO?”

Obama and some of his advisors like Senator John Kerry are said to be wondering the same thing that some Libyan officials are.  One staffer volunteered to me this week:

“Both the CIA and Pentagon told  our committee that green lighting NATO to bomb Libya would be really quick and not even very dirty.  Now it’s become a potentially endless nightmare.”

NATO insiders have advised Congressional staffers recently that the apparent eternal US armed “coalition of the willing” cannot afford another humiliation from its point of view, given Iraq and Afghanistan, so NATO has no plans to stop the bombing until one of three events occur.  Those three in order of NATO preference are: Gaddafi is killed, Gaddafi “surrenders” or Gaddafi flees Libya.

President Obama is being advised by some members of the Foreign Relations Committee among others to “just pull NATO’s god-damned plug and get this mess behind us!”

The much disparaged NATO weekly “Carman and Roland show” live from Brussels and Naples, billed as “NATO’s Media Conferences to inform the public” adds to the concerns of some in Washington. In a long overdue turnaround from last February, when the main stream media here parroted those who for years had been working on toppling Gaddafi about his alleged killing Libyans, CNN just this morning aired a downright balanced report about how NATO’s claims that it is protecting Libyan civilians are dubious and in fact the main cause of  civilians being slaughtered here in NATO sorties, now nearly 20,000 with more than 8,000 bombing sites.

It appears from talking with many people here, including the media, that virtually no one but the script writers for the “Carman & Roland show” believe NATO bombings have anything to do with fulfilling the original objectives of UN Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973.

Carmen told reporters following her and Roland’s 8/16/11 briefing show that NATO expects no problem with an expected un extension next month when NATO’s June renewal expires. She may know what she is talking about because NATO has reportedly been intensively lobbying the White House to bar Gaddafi’s government from the coming UN debate.  The Libyan government, which is keeping statistics on NATO-caused civilian deaths, may not even be able to present its facts to the UN meeting next month.  The reason is because Secretary of State Clinton has refused to grant Libya’s UN ambassador a visa.  Clinton, according to committee staffers mentioned above, plans to arrange at the last minute for the National Transitional Council to represent the views of those being bombed by NATO.

Kerry’s committee staff is fairly confident that the rebels will not oppose an extension of NATO bombing of their country.  Indeed their political and financial futures depend on NATO doing just that.

Yet, the White House has been advised by Committee staffers that NATO has become the main danger to civilians in Libya and that a political solution can be reached if Obama orders a ceasefire.

The President is said to be thinking about doing just that.

Tripoli

*Franklin Lamb, suddenly all over the place.

US Learns No Lesson by *Sajjad Shaukat

Faced with a prolonged war against terrorism on global level, its defeat in Afghanistan, showing determination to withdraw forces from that country in wake of financial crisis and other related problems, the United States seeks to fight covert wars in some Islamic countries, which will especially include Pakistan.

Recently, after a long debate, the US debt crisis to avoid the default has been resolved. The solution included $ 2.4 trillion cuts over the next decade and the rise of the $14.3 trillion debt limit. Now, the default seems further away on temporary basis. Financial experts opine that the US would miss payments on its bonds and default, which will result in dire consequences, particularly for America including other countries. US has also ignored the interests of creditors. Besides other most developed countries, the US could be in serious trouble, if China does not extend more loans by buying US treasury securities. America currently owes 800 billion dollars to China.

Meanwhile, on August 4, the US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned of dire consequences, if the Pentagon is forced to make cuts to its defence budget. Notably, defense spending represents about half of the federal government’s discretionary spending, while the military’s budget has increased by more than 70 percent since 2001.

Russian Prime Minister Putin stated on August 2, that the US and its people “are living beyond their means like a parasite.”

In fact, America has suffered due to an endless war against terrorism. Since 9/11, the total cost of global war against terrorism is more than 7 trillion dollars.

On July 7, 2011, a writer, David DeGraw wrote, “When Obama launched his re-election propaganda campaign to trick the public…that he intends to end the Af-Pak War, he disclosed that the war on terror has cost $1 trillion over the past decade.” But a recent study by the Eisenhower Research Project revealed that the cost of the war on terror is greater than Obama has claimed.” US was spending $12 billion a month in Iraq and is spending over $10 billion per month in Afghanistan. However, the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed $6 trillion—apart from other related expenditures at home and abroad. In this regard, the war on terror is a war against the American people. As President Eisenhower had remarked, “Every dollar spent on war is a dollar not spent on education, food, health care etc.”

It is mentionable that the Muslim militant organisations, fighting against the US-led imperialist powers through ambush rocket attacks and suicide bombers have broken the myth of old model of power. In this respect, most of the western defence analysts have admitted that new brand of Islamic radicalism cannot be eliminated by military forces, equipped with sophisticated weaponry which has badly failed. Since 9/11, various suicide attacks in various countries show that the Muslim activists are giving a greater setback to world economy which protects the interests of the US-led western countries.

On the other side, despite various steps taken by the US in connection with the Islamic militants since 9/11 such as heavy aerial bombardment, ground shelling, arrests and detentions—technical intelligence, US intelligence agencies, especially CIA failed in destroying Al Qaeda’s terrorist network in the Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Nigeria etc. because American enemy is invisible. It proves that Al Qadea has franchised as a perennial different war in the concerned countries indicates.

Notably, on July 22 this year, Al Qaeda-type, the twin terror-attacks in Oslo which killed 92 persons were arranged by a Norwegian right-wing fundamentalist Christian who called for a Christian war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination. In this respect, Western media pointed out the existence of Christian extremists.

It is surprisingly mentionable that while learning no lesson from the flawed policies of the ex-President Bush, President Obama has been acting upon the similar strategy so as to eliminate the Muslim radicals. Setting aside the US defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama administration which already continues with its agenda of secret war in Pakistan through bomb blasts, suicide attacks, targeted killings etc. as arranged by the CIA, Indian RAW, and Israeli Mossad collectively, it has planned a covert war against Pakistan which will include Karachi, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where these secret agencies are assisting the insurgents and their agents with money and weapons. The course of drone attacks will further be extended to other regions beyond Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Unveiled on June 29, President Obama’s counterterrorism strategy is focused on what poses the “most direct and significant threat to the US–Al-Qaeda and its affiliates…America’s best offense would not always be deploying large armies abroad, but delivering targeted surgical pressure against these groups.” In this context, a report had confirmed on July 16 that the coming CIA chief Gen. David Petraeus will implement the covert war in Pakistan. Besides similar threats and pressure of the US other high officials, on August 1, Admiral Mike Mullen stated, “Unless they (Pakistan) move against terrorists like the Haqqani network, it could affect relations between Washington and Islamabad.”

As regards the Haqqani network, Pakistan has already made it clear that army is engaged in other tribal areas, so it cannot attack the militants of North Waziristan.

The contradictory statements of the US high officials which still continue, shows American duplicity with Islamabad. In this connection, a deliberate campaign regarding the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear assets, location of terrorists’ safe-havens in the country, blame game against Pak Army and its intelligence agency, ISI, cross-border terrorism in Afghanistan keeps on going. While, in the recent past, aerial and ground shelling by the US-supported NATO forces inside Pakistan’s border, cross-border attacks by heavily- armed militants who entered Pakistan from Afghanistan and targetted the infrastructure of our country’s various regions have continued intermittently.

Under the pretext of Talibanisation of Pakistan and unrest in the country, which has collevtively been created by the CIA, RAW and Mossad, US India and Israel have been destabilising Pakistan to ‘denculearise’ the latter. For this purpose, the US seeks to shift Afghan war to Pakistan after the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

On August 6, NBC TV channel disclosed that the “US has a contingency plan to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons…if it fears they are about to fall into the wrong hands.”

Knowing the US real intentions, Pakistan’s civil and military leadership has flatly refused to act upon American undue demands. And Islamabad sent home 120 US military trainers. In response, on July 10, America withheld $800 million in military assistance to Pakistan. Islamabad has rejected American pressure to do more against the militancy without bothering for public backlash in wake of the strained relations with Washington.

If US continues its covert war in Pakistan and in some other Islamic countries, both Iran and Pakistan might stand together to thwart the US strategic designs. In that worse scenario, a vast region from Pakistan to Somalia and Nigeria to Iraq will further be radicalised, bringing about more terrorism, directed against the Americans. In such adverse circumstances, American worldwide interests are likely to be jeopardised in these countries including whole of the Middle East where the US has already failed in coping with the Islamic militants directly or indirectly—and where anti-American resentment is running high in wake of the violent protests against the pro-American rulers. Besides, instability in Pakistan will also envelop India by which the United States wants to counterbalance a peace-loving country like China.

These negative developments will further reduce the US bargaining leverage on hostile small countries like Iran, North Korea, Venezuela etc.

Although at present, other NATO allies supported America for attack on Libya, yet in case of targeting Pakistan, most of the US allies could leave the US war against terrorism, and a greater rift will be created between the US and other NATO members in wake of the competing debt crises, while people of other European states held the US responsible for the global financial crisis.

Nonetheless, if after fighting the different war for ten years, America has leant no lesson, its internal problems will give a greater blow to the US economy vis-à-vis other most developed countries, besides making it vulnerable to other external setbacks, ultimately reducing the US role as sole superpower.

Defeating Zionism! by *Alan Hart

That was the headline over a recent post by David Hearst for The Guardian’s Comment Is Free space. It began: “There is an Arabic word you come across a lot when Palestinians talk about their future. Sumud means steadfastness, and it has turned into a strategy: when the imbalance of power is so pronounced, the most important thing to do is to stay put. Staying put against overwhelming odds is regarded as a victory.”

Hearst didn’t offer any substantial explanation of why Palestinian steadfastness is a victory, so I will.

When the Palestine file was closed by Israel’s victory on the battlefield in 1948, it was not supposed to have been re-opened. There was not supposed to have been a regeneration of Palestinian nationalism. The Palestinians were supposed to accept their lot as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of political expediency.

And the whole truth includes this fact. Behind closed doors, and despite their rhetoric to the contrary, the Arab regimes shared the same hope as Zionism and the major powers – that the Palestine file would never be re-opened. They knew that if it was, there would one day have to be a confrontation with Israel and its big power supporters, the U.S. in particular, and they didn’t want that.

They, the Arab regimes, also feared that a Palestinian state, if it was ever established, would be more or less democratic and provide a model of government which all Arabs would want. Palestinian nationalism was therefore perceived by Arab autocrats as a potentially subversive force. (It’s because my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews tells these and related truths that it can’t be published in the Arab world. The regimes of an impotent, corrupt and repressive Arab Order order were and still are every bit as determined as Zionism to suppress the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became the Zionist not Jewish state of Israel).

For their part Israel’s leaders were aware that if they failed to keep the Palestine file closed, a regeneration of Palestinian nationalism would cause the legitimacy of Zionism’s colonial-like enterprise (not to mention its crimes only starting with the first ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians) to be called into question.

After its occupation in 1967 of the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, Israel’s leaders became more and more aware that Palestinian Sumud is a very powerful weapon. (Actually it’s the only weapon the Palestinians had and have). In essence Israel’s strategy for dealing with it was, and still is, humiliating the occupied Palestinians and making life hell for them, in the hope that they will give up their struggle for an acceptable amount of justice and accept crumbs from Zionism’s table or, better still, abandon their homeland and seek a new life elsewhere.

To date Palestinian Sumud has proved to be stronger than Zionism’s ability to destroy it but… Does it necessarily follow that at some point in the future it will defeat Zionism? It depends on the answer to another question. How will the demographic time-bomb created by Israeli occupation be defused?
In theory are three possibilities.

1. Israel ends its occupation completely (subject to minor and mutually agreed border modifications) to make the space for a viable Palestinian state with Jerusalem an open, undivided city and the capital of two states. In this scenario provision would have to be made for appropriate compensation to be paid to those Palestinian refugees wishing to return but for whom there was no the space in the Palestinian mini state. In reality this won’t happen because Zionism was and remains a project for taking for keeps the maximum amount of land with the minimum number of Arabs on it. Also true is that Zionist colonization of the West Bank has gone much too far to be reversed without a Jewish civil war; and as Shimon Peres  once said to me (quoted in my book), no Israeli prime minister is going down in history as the one who triggered it.

2. As the Zionist state becomes more and more isolated in the world, enough Israelis come to their senses and demand that their government goes for the One State solution in order to best protect their own interests. One of my Jewish friends said it could be called Palestein! If it happened this would be the end of Zionism and complete victory for Palestinian steadfastness. (My own take on the One State solution is well known but bears repeating. The Jews, generally speaking, are the intellectual elite of the Western world. The Palestinians are by far the intellectual elite of the Arab world. Together in peace and partnership in One State with equal human and political rights for all, they could play the leading role in changing the region for the better and by doing so give new hope and inspiration to the whole world).

3. Zionism’s in-Israel leaders create a pretext (possibly involving Mossad agents dressed as Arabs planting bombs) to go for a final round of ethnic cleansing – to drive the Palestinians off the West Bank and into Jordan or wherever.

It’s because I believe a Zionist Final Solution (as in 3 above) is a real possibility in a foreseeable future that I think a way should be found for the major powers, led by America, to put Israel on public notice that if it did resort to a final round of ethnic cleansing, it would be universally condemned as a criminal state and subjected to sanctions of every kind, universally applied.

*Alan Hart, a researcher and author