Libya and the world we live in - The Anti-Empire Report

by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

Libya and the world we live in

"Why are you attacking us? Why are you killing our children? Why are you destroying our infrastructure?"
– Television address by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, April 30, 2011

A few hours later NATO hit a target in Tripoli, killing Gaddafi's 29-year-old son Saif al-Arab, three of Gaddafi's grandchildren, all under twelve years of age, and several friends and neighbors.
In his TV address, Gaddafi had appealed to the NATO nations for a cease-fire and negotiations after six weeks of bombings and cruise missile attacks against his country.


Well, let's see if we can derive some understanding of the complex Libyan turmoil.

The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO and the European Union — recognizes no higher power and believes, literally, that it can do whatever it wants in the world, to whomever it wants, for as long as it wants, and call it whatever it wants, like "humanitarian".

If The Holy Triumvirate decides that it doesn't want to overthrow the government in Syria or in Egypt or Tunisia or Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Jordan, no matter how cruel, oppressive, or religiously intolerant those governments are with their people, no matter how much they impoverish and torture their people, no matter how many protesters they shoot dead in their Freedom Square, the Triumvirate will simply not overthrow them.

If the Triumvirate decides that it wants to overthrow the government of Libya, though that government is secular and has used its oil wealth for the benefit of the people of Libya and Africa perhaps more than any government in all of Africa and the Middle East, but keeps insisting over the years on challenging the Triumvirate's imperial ambitions in Africa and raising its demands on the Triumvirate's oil companies, then the Triumvirate will simply overthrow the government of Libya.

If the Triumvirate wants to punish Gaddafi and his sons it will arrange with the Triumvirate's friends at the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for them.

If the Triumvirate doesn't want to punish the leaders of Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Jordan it will simply not ask the ICC to issue arrest warrants for them. Ever since the Court first formed in 1998, the United States has refused to ratify it and has done its best to denigrate it and throw barriers in its way because Washington is concerned that American officials might one day be indicted for their many war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bill Richardson, as US ambassador to the UN, said to the world in 1998 that the United States should be exempt from the court's prosecution because it has "special global responsibilities". But this doesn't stop the United States from using the Court when it suits the purposes of American foreign policy.

If the Triumvirate wants to support a rebel military force to overthrow the government of Libya then it does not matter how fanatically religious, al-Qaeda-related,¹ executing-beheading-torturing, monarchist, or factionally split various groups of that rebel force are at times, the Triumvirate will support it, as it did certain forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hope that after victory the Libyan force will not turn out as jihadist as it did in Afghanistan, or as fratricidal as in Iraq. One potential source of conflict within the rebels, and within the country if ruled by them, is that a constitutional declaration made by the rebel council states that, while guaranteeing democracy and the rights of non-Muslims, "Islam is the religion of the state and the principle source of legislation in Islamic Jurisprudence."²
 
Adding to the list of the rebels' charming qualities we have the Amnesty International report that the rebels have been conducting mass arrests of black people across the nation, terming all of them "foreign mercenaries" but with growing evidence that a large number were simply migrant workers. Reported Reuters (August 29): "On Saturday, reporters saw the putrefying bodies of 22 men of African origin on a Tripoli beach. Volunteers who had come to bury them said they were mercenaries whom rebels had shot dead." To complete this portrait of the West's newest darlings we have this report from The Independent of London (August 27): "The killings were pitiless. They had taken place at a makeshift hospital, in a tent marked clearly with the symbols of the Islamic crescent. Some of the dead were on stretchers, attached to intravenous drips. Some were on the back of an ambulance that had been shot at. A few were on the ground, seemingly attempting to crawl to safety when the bullets came."

If the Triumvirate's propaganda is clever enough and deceptive enough and paints a graphic picture of Gaddafi-initiated high tragedy in Libya, many American and European progressives will insist that though they never, ever support imperialism they're making an exception this time because ...

• The Libyan people are being saved from a "massacre", both actual and potential. This massacre, however, seems to have been grossly exaggerated by the Triumvirate, al Jazeera TV, and that station's owner, the government of Qatar; and nothing approaching reputable evidence of a massacre has been offered, neither a mass grave or anything else; the massacre stories appear to be on a par with the Viagra-rape stories spread by al Jazeera (the Fox News of the Libyan uprising). Qatar, it should be noted, has played an active military role in the civil war on the side of NATO. It should be further noted that the main massacre in Libya has been six months of daily Triumvirate bombing, killing an unknown number of people and ruining much of the infrastructure. Michigan U. Prof. Juan Cole, the quintessential true-believer in the good intentions of American foreign policy who nevertheless manages to have a regular voice in progressive media, recently wrote that "Qaddafi was not a man to compromise ... his military machine would mow down the revolutionaries if it were allowed to." Is that clear, class? We all know of course that Sarkozy, Obama, and Cameron made compromises without end in their devastation of Libya; they didn't, for example, use any nuclear weapons.
• The United Nations gave its approval for military intervention; i.e., the leading members of the Triumvirate gave their approval, after Russia and China cowardly abstained instead of exercising their veto power; (perhaps hoping to receive the same courtesy from the US, UK and France when Russia or China is the aggressor nation).
•  
• The people of Libya are being "liberated", whatever in the world that means, now or in the future. Gaddafi is a "dictator" they insist. That may indeed be the proper term to use for the man, but it must still be asked: Is he a relatively benevolent dictator or is he the other kind so favored by Washington? It must also be asked: Since the United States has habitually supported dictators for the entire past century, why not this one?

The Triumvirate, and its fawning media, would have the world believe that what's happened in Libya is just another example of the Arab Spring, a popular uprising by non-violent protestors against a dictator for the proverbial freedom and democracy, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia and Egypt, which sandwich Libya. But there are several reasons to question this analysis in favor of seeing the Libyan rebels' uprising as a planned and violent attempt to take power in behalf of their own political movement, however heterogeneous that movement might appear to be in its early stage. For example:

1. They soon began flying the flag of the monarchy that Gaddafi had overthrown
2. They were an armed and violent rebellion almost from the beginning; within a few days, we could read of "citizens armed with weapons seized from army bases"³ and of "the policemen who had participated in the clash were caught and hanged by protesters"⁴
3. Their revolt took place not in the capital but in the heart of the country's oil region; they then began oil production and declared that foreign countries would be rewarded oil-wise in relation to how much each country aided their cause
4. They soon set up a Central Bank, a rather bizarre thing for a protest movement
5. International support came quickly, even beforehand, from Qatar and al Jazeera to the CIA and French intelligence

The notion that a leader does not have the right to put down an armed rebellion against the state is too absurd to discuss.

Not very long ago, Iraq and Libya were the two most modern and secular states in the Mideast/North Africa world with perhaps the highest standards of living in the region. Then the United States of America came along and saw fit to make a basket case of each one. The desire to get rid of Gaddafi had been building for years; the Libyan leader had never been a reliable pawn; then the Arab Spring provided the excellent opportunity and cover. As to Why? Take your pick of the following:

• Gaddafi's plans to conduct Libya's trading in Africa in raw materials and oil in a new currency — the gold African dinar, a change that could have delivered a serious blow to the US's dominant position in the world economy. (In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced Iraqi oil would be traded in euros, not dollars; sanctions and an invasion followed.) For further discussion see here.
• A host-country site for Africom, the US Africa Command, one of six regional commands the Pentagon has divided the world into. Many African countries approached to be the host have declined, at times in relatively strong terms. Africom at present is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. According to a State Department official: "We've got a big image problem down there. ... Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don't trust the US."⁵
• An American military base to replace the one closed down by Gaddafi after he took power in 1969. There's only one such base in Africa, in Djibouti. Watch for one in Libya sometime after the dust has settled. It'll perhaps be situated close to the American oil wells. Or perhaps the people of Libya will be given a choice — an American base or a NATO base.
• Another example of NATO desperate to find a raison d'être for its existence since the end of the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact.
• Gaddafi's role in creating the African Union. The corporate bosses never like it when their wage slaves set up a union. The Libyan leader has also supported a United States of Africa for he knows that an Africa of 54 independent states will continue to be picked off one by one and abused and exploited by the members of the Triumvirate. Gaddafi has moreover demanded greater power for smaller countries in the United Nations.
• The claim by Gaddafi's son, Saif el Islam, that Libya had helped to fund Nicolas Sarkozy's election campaign⁶ could have humiliated the French president and explain his obsessiveness and haste in wanting to be seen as playing the major role in implementing the "no fly zone" and other measures against Gaddafi. A contributing factor may have been the fact that France has been weakened in its former colonies and neo-colonies in Africa and the Middle East, due in part to Gaddafi's influence.
• Gaddafi has been an outstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause and critic of Israeli policies; and on occasion has taken other African and Arab countries, as well as the West, to task for their not matching his policies or rhetoric; one more reason for his lack of popularity amongst world leaders of all stripes.
• In January, 2009, Gaddafi made known that he was considering nationalizing the foreign oil companies in Libya.⁷ He also has another bargaining chip: the prospect of utilizing Russian, Chinese and Indian oil companies. During the current period of hostilities, he invited these countries to make up for lost production. But such scenarios will now not take place. The Triumvirate will instead seek to privatize the National Oil Corporation, transferring Libya's oil wealth into foreign hands.
• The American Empire is troubled by any threat to its hegemony. In the present historical period the empire is concerned mainly with Russia and China. China has extensive energy investments and construction investments in Libya and elsewhere in Africa. The average American neither knows nor cares about this. The average American imperialist cares greatly, if for no other reason than in this time of rising demands for cuts to the military budget it's vital that powerful "enemies" be named and maintained.
• For yet more reasons, see the article "Why Regime Change in Libya?" by Ismael Hossein-zadeh, and the US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks — Wikileaks reference 07TRIPOLI967 11-15-07 (includes a complaint about Libyan "resource nationalism")

A word from the man the world's mightiest military powers have been trying to kill

"Recollections of My Life", written by Col. Muammar Gaddafi, April 8, 2011, excerpts:

Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called "capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer, so, there is no alternative for me, I must make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following his path, the path that has made our country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab brothers and sisters to work here with us ... I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands who are all my children, then so be it. ... In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy". They know the truth but continue to lie, they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip.

The state of our beloved capitalist system, early 21st century

I pay attention to the fat content of my food, so I was pleased to find a can of Pam canola oil cooking spray that had 0 grams fat per serving. Great, can't do better than zero fat, can you? I used it often for a few months ... until one day I took a closer look at the "Nutrition Facts" ... Yes, it said 0 grams fat per serving. A serving. How big was that? Let's see ... "Serving Size about 1/4 second spray" ... Hmmm, how does one press down on a button for 1/4 second? Is it humanly possible? Even the manufacturer had to say "about". I had been taken. My hat is off to you Capitalist Robber Barons — You're good!

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The Dow Jones industrial average of blue-chip stocks fell 635 points on Monday August 8.
On Tuesday it rose by 430 points.
Wednesday, the market, in its infinite wisdom, decided to fall again; this time by 520 points.
And on Thursday ... yes, it rose once again, by 423 points.
The Dow changed directions for eight consecutive trading sessions.
Upon such marvels of mankind countless people build careers, others wager their life savings, philanthropic foundations and universities risk much of their endowments, and conservative sages deliver sermons to the world on the wisdom and sacredness of the free market.

Main Street is the climax of civilization.
That this Ford car might stand in front of
the Bon Ton store, Hannibal invaded Rome
and Erasmus wrote in Oxford cloisters.
– Sinclair Lewis, "Main Street", 1920

Do the economic fundamentals really change dramatically overnight? Or is our economic system as psycho as our foreign policy? The Washington Post's senior economic columnist, Steven Pearlstein, wrote on August 14th of the four days described above: "I suppose there are some schnooks who actually believe that those wild swings in stock prices last week represented sober and serious concerns by thoughtful, sophisticated investors about the Treasury debt downgrade or European sovereign debt or a slowdown in global growth. But surely such perceptions don't radically change each afternoon between 2 and 4:30, when the market averages last week were gyrating out of control."

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Last month "Pope Benedict XVI denounced the profit-at-all-cost mentality that he says is behind Europe's economic crisis" as he arrived in hard-hit Spain. "The economy doesn't function with market self-regulation but needs an ethical reason to work for mankind," he declared. "Man must be at the center of the economy, and the economy cannot be measured only by maximization of profit but rather according to the common good."⁸
"I am a Marxist," said the Dalai Lama last year. Marxism has "moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits."⁹
"I don't believe in anything," said Barack Obama. "At least not really strongly." (No, I made that one up.)

---

Perhaps the worst outcome of the United States "winning the Cold War" is that countless progressive people think there's no alternative to the capitalist system. Seventy years of anti-communist education and media stamped in people's minds a lasting association between socialism and what the Soviet Union called communism. Socialism meant a dictatorship, it meant Stalinist repression, a suffocating "command economy", no freedom of enterprise, no freedom to change jobs, few avenues for personal expression, and other similar truths and untruths. This is a set of beliefs clung to even amongst many Americans opposed to US foreign policy. No matter how bad the economy is, Americans think, the only alternative available is something called "communism", and they know how awful that is.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party USA has endorsed Barack Obama for re-election.¹⁰

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"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
– Frederic Bastiat, (1801-1850) French economist, statesman, and author

Notes

1. For example, see: The Telegraph (London), August 30, 2011: "Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime." There is a plethora of other reports detailing the ties between the rebels and radical Islamist groups. ^↩
2. Washington Post, August 31, 2011
3. McClatchy Newspapers, February 20, 2011 ^↩
4. Wikipedia, Timeline of the 2011 Libyan civil war, February 19, 2011 ^↩
5. The Guardian (London), June 25, 2007 ^↩
6. The Guardian (London), March 16, 2011 ^↩
7. Reuters, January 21, 2009 ^↩
8. Associated Press, August 11, 2011 ^↩
9. Agence France Presse, May 21, 2010^↩
10. "Yikes! Look who just endorsed Obama for 4 more years", WorldNetDaily, August 3 2011^↩

–
William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Sweet crude of mine By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE
Sweet crude of mine
By Pepe Escobar

Royals dancing in palace corridors have been spotted in Riyadh. The heir to the Libyan throne, Prince al-Senussi, a nephew of King Idriss who was deposed by Muammar Gaddafi and others in a bloodless 1969 military coup, has embarked on a busy self-promotion campaign, saying he's ready to go back to Libya and even "lead the country".

Nothing in the world would be sweeter for the House of Saud - extremely distasteful of most Arab secular republics - than a friendly, brand new emirate in northern Africa.

But the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the real winners of the Libyan tribal/civil war, may have other ideas. Mahmoud Jibril - the dodgy National Transitional Council's prime minister - speaking in Qatar, has explicitly thanked the winners by name: France, Britain, the United States, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Of this top five, the Western top three might welcome, in theory, a pliable emirate - but as long as it does not exhibit North Waziristan-style ultra-fundamentalist tendencies, as in Pakistan's tribal area.

It's an open game, because at this stage no one really knows the degree of influence Islamists will be able to wield in post-Gaddafi Libya. A week from now, in Paris, some answers might be on the table; that's when the "friends of Libya" (FOL) will gather with council leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil and prime minister Jibril to talk business regarding what is gearing up to be a new NATO protectorate.

Meanwhile, from Benghazi to European capitals, the dancing is to the tune of a Guns 'n Roses megahit, now rebranded Sweet Crude of Mine. France and Germany are already pressing the "NATO rebels" leadership for juicy deals, Italy starts today (Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is meeting Jalil in Milan) and the Brits and the Americans are about to join the fray.

Up to now, Libya's National Oil Company was essentially awarding service contracts on old, profitable oil fields to Libya's national subsidiaries. But what BP, Total, Exxon Mobil and the Qatar oil company really want is serious involvement in new fields, and those famous production-sharing agreements (PSAs) that allow stratospheric profits. They want the full bonanza they didn't get in Iraq - where some of the juiciest contracts went to Russian, Chinese or Malaysian players.

As for those players that were already on Libyan soil, such as Spain's Repsol and Italy's ENI, they are planning to be back in business before the end of September. No one knows what will happen to Chinese investments.

What WikiLeaks had already revealed [1] will certainly be back in the form of dogfights, such as between US companies and Italy's ENI for the cream of the contracts. Largely because of Berlusconi's very tight "bunga bunga" links with Gaddafi, ENI was already pumping almost 200,000 barrels of oil a day before the tribal/civil war.

Anyway, from the point of view of corporations linked to the war "winners", no more Gaddafi is already a surefire guarantee of ultra sweet contracts and an array of concessions.

Follow the money

On the banking front, WikiLeaks once again had already revealed [2] that the privatization of Libya's central bank was regarded as a golden "opportunity" for US banks. The shadow "rebel" bank facilitated by HSBC in all probability will take over - obviously not independent as the previous Libya Central Bank but aligned with the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bankers' central bank.

So bye-bye to "subversive", unifying Gaddafi ideas such as dumping the US dollar and the euro so Arab and African nations would start dealing in a new single currency - the gold dinar. It's crucial to note that most African nations - and a lot of Arabs - backed up the idea. The only serious contrarians in the region were South Africa and the Arab League (influenced by the House of Saud). Obviously Washington and the European Union (EU) were furious - to the point of calling NATO to the rescue.

It's never enough to remember that in late 2002 Iraq under Saddam Hussein started accepting payment in euros instead of US dollars for its oil. Everybody knows what happened next. Don't mess with the petrodollar, or else ...

So the oil and the flow of money will be secure in the hands of the "winners". Now for the strategic design. The Pentagon's Africom - after its first successful African war - will be rewarded with its first African base, thus abandoning its headquarters in that lovely African bush, Stuttgart. And NATO will proceed in its sacred mission of turning the Mediterranean into a "NATO lake". Northern Africa is already in the bag; now for the eastern Mediterranean, to teach a lesson to those pesky Syrians.

Whose flag is this?
To qualify the TNC's cast of characters as "dodgy" is in fact an understatement. Virtually everyone is "invisible". Few may remember that the TNC's Jalil was the judge that condemned those Bulgarian nurses to death - a notorious case in France that warranted muscular intervention by neo-Napoleonic Nicolas Sarkozy, who even regimented his trophy wife Carla Bruni to seduce the Big G. After the nurses were freed, Jalil was promoted by Gaddafi to justice minister, lasting from 2007 until his opportunistic defection last February.

To believe that this motley crew of disgruntled tribals, radical Islamists, fake "socialists" of the Tony Blair variety, cynical opportunists on the payroll of oil giants, military defectors and outright thugs will pray in the altar of "democracy" is a mirage. Not to mention that they invited NATO and regressive Arab monarchies to bomb their motherland - certainly not where they live, but "the other side", Tripolitania.

It remains to be seen how most people and tribes in Tripolitania will relate to the people of Cyrenaica - which they view as lowly country bumpkins - seizing power. They are already fuming at being degraded in the new Libyan flag - which is basically the Cyrenaica flag (black rectangle with a white Islam crescent) with two additional strips, red for Fezzan and green for Tripolitania

No one knows how the next stage of this "kinetic" war that is not a war (copyright: The White House) will play out. Yet there are serious reasons to believe this may turn out to be a devastating remix of the 2001 "defeated Taliban" and 2003 "Mission Accomplished" scenarios.

Bedouins and Berbers, at war, are all about strategic retreat and ambushing. That is, guerrilla. No one knows what degree of tribal support Gaddafi may still count on not only around Tripoli but around his fiefdom of Sirte or in the high desert. Yet it's a sure bet that he'll go the guerrilla way. Whether he'll end up like Saddam or play "the road goes on forever" like the Taliban is the $100 billion question (the amount of Libyan funds to be unfrozen by the "winners"). Quagmire looms.

Note
1. See WikiLeaks cables show that it was all about the oil.
2. See Libya makes progress on banking reform.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click here.

Disaster capitalism swoops over Libya By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE
Disaster capitalism swoops over Libya
By Pepe Escobar

Think of the new Libya as the latest spectacular chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we had R2P ("responsibility to protect"). Instead of neo-conservatives, we had humanitarian imperialists.

But the target is the same: regime change. And the project is the same: to completely dismantle and privatize a nation that was not integrated into turbo-capitalism; to open another (profitable) land of opportunity for turbocharged neo-liberalism. The whole thing is especially handy because it is smack in the middle of a nearly global recession.

It will take some time; Libyan oil won't totally return to the market within 18 months. But there's the reconstruction of everything the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombed (well, not much of what the Pentagon bombed in 2003 was reconstructed in Iraq ...)

Anyway - from oil to rebuilding - in thesis juicy business opportunities loom. France's neo-Napoleonic Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's David of Arabia Cameron believe they will be especially well positioned to profit from NATO's victory. Yet there's no guarantee the new Libyan bonanza will be enough to lift both former colonial powers (neo-colonials?) out of recession.

President Sarkozy in particular will milk the business opportunities for French companies for all they're worth - part of his ambitious agenda of "strategic redeployment" of France in the Arab world. A compliant French media are gloating that this was "his" war - spinning that he decided to arm the rebels on the ground with French weaponry, in close cooperation with Qatar, including a key rebel commando unit that went by sea from Misrata to Tripoli last Saturday, at the start of "Operation Siren".

Well, he certainly saw the opening when Muammar Gaddafi's chief of protocol defected to Paris in October 2010. That's when the whole regime change drama started to be incubated.

Bombs for oil
As previously noted (see Welcome to Libya's 'democracy', Asia Times Online, August 24) the vultures are already circling Tripoli to grab (and monopolize) the spoils. And yes - most of the action has to do with oil deals, as in this stark assertion by Abdeljalil Mayouf, information manager at the "rebel" Arabian Gulf Oil Company; "We don't have a problem with Western countries like the Italians, French and UK companies. But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil."

These three happen to be crucial members of the BRICS group of emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which are actually growing while the Atlanticist, NATO-bombing economies are either stuck in stagnation or recession. The top four BRICs also happen to have abstained from approving UN Security Council resolution 1973, the no-fly zone scam that metamorphosed into NATO bringing regime change from above. They saw right through it from the beginning.

To make matters worse (for them), only three days before the Pentagon's Africom launched its first 150-plus Tomahawks over Libya, Colonel Gaddafi gave an interview to German TV stressing that if the country were attacked, all energy contracts would be transferred to Russian, Indian and Chinese companies.

So the winners in the oil bonanza are already designated: NATO members plus Arab monarchies. Among the companies involved, British Petroleum (BP), France's Total and the Qatar national oil company. For Qatar - which dispatched jet fighters and recruiters to the front lines, trained "rebels" in exhaustive combat techniques, and is already managing oil sales in eastern Libya - the war will reveal itself to be a very wise investment decision.

Prior to the months-long crisis that is in its end game now with the rebels in the capital, Tripoli, Libya was producing 1.6 million barrels per day. Once resumed, this could reap Tripoli's new rulers some US$50 billion annually. Most estimates place oil reserves at 46.4 billion barrels.

The "rebels" of new Libya better not mess with China. Five months ago, China's official policy was already to call for a ceasefire; if that had happened, Gaddafi would still control more than half of Libya. Yet Beijing - never a fan of violent regime change - for the moment is exercising extreme restraint.

Wen Zhongliang, the deputy head of the Ministry of Trade, willfully observed, "Libya will continue to protect the interests and rights of Chinese investors and we hope to continue investment and economic cooperation." Official statements are piling up emphasizing "mutual economic cooperation".

Last week, Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the dodgy Transitional National Council (TNC), told Xinhua that all deals and contracts agreed with the Gaddafi regime would be honored - but Beijing is taking no chances.

Libya supplied no more than 3% of China's oil imports in 2010. Angola is a much more crucial supplier. But China is still Libya's top oil customer in Asia. Moreover, China could be very helpful in the infrastructure rebuilding front, or in the technology export - no less than 75 Chinese companies with 36,000 employees were already on the ground before the outbreak of the tribal/civil war, swiftly evacuated in less than three days.

The Russians - from Gazprom to Tafnet - had billions of dollars invested in Libyan projects; Brazilian oil giant Petrobras and the construction company Odebrecht also had intrests there. It's still unclear what will happen to them. The director general of the Russia-Libya Business Council, Aram Shegunts, is extremely worried: "Our companies will lose everything because NATO will prevent them from doing business in Libya."

Italy seems to have passed the "rebel" version of "you're either with us or without us". Energy giant ENI apparently won't be affected, as Premier Silvio "Bunga Bunga" Berlusconi pragmatically dumped his previous very close pal Gaddafi at the start of the Africom/NATO bombing spree.

ENI's directors are confident Libya's oil and gas flows to southern Italy will resume before winter. And the Libyan ambassador in Italy, Hafed Gaddur, reassured Rome that all Gaddafi-era contracts will be honored. Just in case, Berlusconi will meet the TNC's prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, this Thursday in Milan.

Bin Laden to the rescue

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu - of the famed "zero problems with our neighbors" policy - has also been gushing praise on the former "rebels" turned powers-that-be. Eyeing the post-Gaddafi business bonanza as well, Ankara - as NATO's eastern flank - ended up helping to impose a naval blockade on the Gaddafi regime, carefully cultivated the TNC, and in July formally recognized it as the government of Libya. Business "rewards" loom.

Then there's the crucial plot; how the House of Saud is going to profit from having been instrumental in setting up a friendly regime in Libya, possibly peppered with Salafi notables; one of the key reasons for the Saudi onslaught - which included a fabricated vote at the Arab League - was the extreme bad blood between Gaddafi and King Abdullah since the run-up towards the war on Iraq in 2002.

It's never enough to stress the cosmic hypocrisy of an ultra-regressive absolute monarchy/medieval theocracy - which invaded Bahrain and repressed its native Shi'ites - saluting what could be construed as a pro-democracy movement in Northern Africa.

Anyway, it's time to party. Expect the Saudi Bin Laden Group to reconstruct like mad all over Libya - eventually turning the (looted) Bab al-Aziziyah into a monster, luxury Mall of Tripolitania.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click here.

Welcome to Libya's 'democracy' By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE

Welcome to Libya's 'democracy'
By Pepe Escobar

The Big Gaddafi has barely left the building - the Bab-al-Aziziyah compound - and the Western vultures are already circling overhead; the scramble is on to seize the "big prize" - Libya's oil and gas wealth. [1]

Libya is as much a pawn in a serious ideological, geopolitical, geo-economic and geostrategic chessboard as a pedestrian morality play sold as a TV reality show; idealistic "rebels" win against Public Enemy Number One. Once the public enemy was Saddam Hussein, then it was Osama bin Laden, today is Muammar Gaddafi, tomorrow is President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, one day it will be Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The enemy is never the ultra reactionary House of Saud.

How NATO won the war
The spectacular reappearing act of Gaddafi's son Saif al-Gaddafi notwithstanding, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has virtually won the Libyan civil war (or "kinetic military activity", according to the White House). The masses of "Libyan people" were spectators at best, or bit part actors in the form of a few thousand "rebels" carrying kalashnikovs.

The top billing was R2P ("responsibility to protect"). From the beginning R2P, manned by France and Britain and backed by the US, magically turned into regime change. That led to the unsung stars in this production being Western and monarchical Arab "advisers", as in "contractors" or "mercenaries".

NATO started winning the war by launching Operation Siren at Iftar - the break of the Ramadan fast - last Saturday evening, Libya time. "Siren" was the codename for an invasion of Tripoli. That was NATO's final - and desperate - power play, after the chaotic "rebels" had gone nowhere after five months of fighting Gaddafi's forces.

Until then, NATO's plan A was to try to kill Gaddafi. What R2P cheerleaders - left and right - had dubbed "steady NATO attrition" boiled down to praying for three outcomes; Gaddafi killed, Gaddafi surrenders, Gaddafi flees.

Not that any of this prevented NATO bombs from falling in private homes, universities, hospitals or even close to the Foreign Ministry. Everything - and everyone - was a target.

"Siren" featured a colorful casting of "NATO rebels", Islamist fanatics, gullible embedded journalists, TV-friendly mobs, and Cyrenaica youth manipulated by opportunist Gaddafi regime defectors eyeing fat checks by oil giants Total and BP.

With "Siren", NATO came out all guns (literally) blazing; Apache gunships firing nonstop and jets bombing everything in sight. NATO supervised the landing of hundreds of troops from Misrata on the coast east of Tripoli while a NATO warship distributed heavy weapons.

On Sunday alone there may have been 1,300 civilian deaths in Tripoli, and at least 5,000 wounded. The Ministry of Health announced that hospitals were overflowing. Anyone who by that time believed relentless NATO bombing had anything to do with R2P and United Nations Resolution 1973 was living in an intensive care unit.

NATO preceded "Siren" with massive bombing of Zawiya - the key oil-refining city 50 kilometers west of Tripoli. That cut off Tripoli's fuel supply lines. According to NATO itself, at least half of Libya's armed forces were "degraded" - Pentagon/NATO speak for killed or seriously wounded. That means tens of thousands of dead people. That also explains the mysterious disappearance of the 65,000 soldiers in charge of defending Tripoli. And it largely explains why the Gaddafi regime, in power for 42 years, then crumbled in roughly 24 hours.

NATO's Siren call - after 20,000 sorties, and more than 7,500 strikes against ground targets - was only made possible by a crucial decision by the Barack Obama administration in early July, enabling, as reported by The Washington Post, "the sharing of more sensitive materials with NATO, including imagery and signals intercepts that could be provided to British and French special operations troops on the ground in addition to pilots in the air".

That is, without the Pentagon's unmatched firepower know-how, satellites and drones, NATO would still be engaged in Operation Quagmire Forever - and the Obama administration would not be able to milk a major victory in this "kinetic" drama.

Who are these people?
Who are these people who suddenly erupted in joy on US and European television screens? After the smiles to the cameras and the Kalashnikovs shooting the skies, get ready for some major fratricidal fireworks.

Ethnic and tribal trouble is bound to explode. Many of the Berbers from the Western mountains, who entered Tripoli from the south this past weekend, are hardcore Salafis. Same with the Muslim Brotherhood/Salafi nebula from Cyrenaica, which has been instructed by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) boots on the ground. As much as these fundamentalists "used" the Europeans and the Americans to get close to power, they may become a nasty guerrilla force if they are marginalized by the new NATO masters.

A large Benghazi-based "revolution" sold to the West as a popular movement was always a myth. Only two months ago the armed "revolutionaries" barely numbered 1,000. NATO's solution was to build a mercenary army - including all sorts of unsavory types, from former Colombian death squad members to recruiters from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who pinched scores of unemployed Tunisians and tribals disgruntled with Tripoli. All these on top of the CIA mercenary squad - Salafis in Benghazi and Derna - and the House of Saud squad - the Muslim Brotherhood gang.

It's hard not to be reminded of the UCK drug gang in Kosovo - the war NATO "won" in the Balkans. Or of the Pakistanis and Saudis, with US backing, arming the "freedom fighters" of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Then there's the dodgy, Benghazi-based, Transitional National Council (TNC)'s cast of characters.

The leader, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, Gaddafi's justice minister from 2007 until his resignation on February 26, studied sharia and civil law at the University of Libya. That might entitle him to cross rhetorical swords with the Islamic fundamentalists in Benghazi, al-Baida and Delna - but he could use his knowledge to press their interests in a new power-sharing arrangement.

As for Mahmoud Jibril, the chairman of the council's executive board, he studied at Cairo University and then the University of Pittsburgh. He's the key Qatari connection - having been involved in asset management for Sheikha Mozah, the ultra high-profile wife of the emir of Qatar.

There's also the son of the last monarch of Libya, King Idris, deposed by Gaddafi 42 years ago (with no bloodshed); the House of Saud would love a new monarchy in northern Africa. And the son of Omar Mukhtar, the hero of the resistance against Italian colonialism - a more secular figure.

The new Iraq?
Yet to believe that NATO would win the war and let the "rebels" control power is a joke. Reuters has already reported that a "bridging force" of around 1,000 soldiers from Qatar, the Emirates and Jordan will arrive in Tripoli to act as police. And the Pentagon is already spinning that the US military will be on the ground to "help to secure the weapons". A nice touch that already implies who's going to be really in charge; the "humanitarian" neo-colonialists plus their Arab minions.

Abdel Fatah Younis, the "rebel" commander killed by the rebels themselves, was a French intelligence asset. He was killed by the Muslim Brotherhood faction - just when the Great Arab Liberator Sarkozy was trying to negotiate an endgame with Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's London School of Economics son now back from the dead.

So the big winners in the end are London, Washington, the House of Saud and the Qataris (they sent jets and "advisers", they are already handling the oil sales). With a special mention for the compound Pentagon/NATO - considering that Africom will finally set up its first African base in the Mediterranean, and NATO is one step closer to declaring the Mediterranean "a NATO lake".

Islamism? Tribalism? These may be Libya's lesser ills compared to a new fantasyland open to neo-liberalism. There are few doubts the new Western masters won't try to revive a friendlier version of Iraq's nefarious, rapacious Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), turning Libya into a hardcore neo-liberal dream of 100% ownership of Libyan assets, total repatriation of profits, Western corporations with the same legal standing of local firms, foreign banks buying local banks and very low income and corporate taxes.

Meanwhile, the deep fracture between the center (Tripoli) and the periphery for the control of energy resources will fester. BP, Total, Exxon, all Western oil giants will be gratefully rewarded by the transitional council - to the detriment of Chinese, Russian and Indian companies. NATO troops on the ground will certainly help to keep the council on message.

Oil executives estimate it will take at least a year to get oil production back to pre-civil war levels of 1.6 million barrels per day, but say annual earnings from oil could reap Tripoli's new rulers some US$50 billion annually. Most estimates place oil reserves at 46.4 billion barrels, 3% of the world's reserves and worth some $3.9 trillion at today's oil price. Known gas reserves stand at some 5 trillion cubic feet.

Thus in the end R2P wins. Humanitarian imperialism wins. The Arab monarchies win. NATO as global Robocop wins. The Pentagon wins. But even that is not enough for the usual imperial suspects - already calling for the deployment of a "stabilization force". And all this while lost-the-plot progressives in assorted latitudes continue to hail the Holy Alliance of Western neocolonialism, ultra-reactionary Arab monarchies and hardcore Salafis.

It ain't over till the fat Arab lady sings. Anyway, on to the next stop; Damascus.

1. The Big Gaddafi Asia Times Online, August 20.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

The Truth About the Situation in Libya

By Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
(http://www.ANSWERCoalition.org)

Libya is a small country of just over 6 million people but it possesses the largest oil reserves in all of Africa. The oil produced there is especially coveted because of its particularly high quality.

The Air Force of the United States along with Britain and France has carried out 7,459 bombing attacks since March 19. Britain, France and the United States sent special operation ground forces and commando units to direct the military operations of the so-called rebel fighters – it is a NATO- led army in the field.

The troops may be disaffected Libyans but the operation is under the control and direction of NATO commanders and western commando units who serve as “advisors.” Their new weapons and billions in funds come from the U.S. and other NATO powers that froze and seized Libya’s assets in Western banks. Their only military successes outside of Benghazi, in the far east of the country, have been exclusively based on the coordinated air and ground operations of the imperialist NATO military forces.

In military terms, Libya’s resistance to NATO is of David and Goliath proportions. U.S. military spending alone is more than ten times greater than Libya’s entire annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which was $74.2 billion in 2010, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book.

In recent weeks, the NATO military operations used surveillance-collecting drones, satellites, mounting aerial attacks and covert commando units to decapitate Libya’s military and political leadership and its command and control capabilities. Global economic sanctions meant that the country was suddenly deprived of income and secure access to goods and services needed to sustain a civilian economy over a long period.

“The cumulative effect [of NATO’s coordinated air and ground operation] not only destroyed Libya’s military infrastructure but also greatly diminished Colonel Gaddafi’s commanders to control forces, leaving even committed fighting units unable to move, resupply or coordinate operations,“ reports the New York Times in a celebratory article on August 22.

A False Pretext

The United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy targeted the Libyan government for overthrow or “regime change” not because these governments were worried about protecting civilians or to bring about a more democratic form of governance in Libya.

If that were the real motivation of the NATO powers, they could start the bombing of Saudi Arabia right away. There are no elections in Saudi Arabia. The monarchy does not even allow women to drive cars. By law, women must be fully covered in public or they will go to prison. Protests are rare in Saudi Arabia because any dissent is met with imprisonment, torture and execution.

The Saudi monarchy is protected by U.S. imperialism because it is part of an undeclared but real U.S. sphere of influence and it is the largest producer of oil in the world. The U.S. attitude toward the Saudi monarchy was put succinctly by Ronald Reagan in 1981, when he said that the U.S. government “will not permit” revolution in Saudi Arabia such as the 1979 Iranian revolution that removed the U.S. client regime of the Shah. Reagan’s message was clear: the Pentagon and CIA’s military forces would be used decisively to destroy any democratic movement against the rule of the Saudi royal family.

Reagan’s explicit statement in 1981 has in fact been the policy of every successive U.S. administration, including the current one.

Libya and Imperialism

Libya, unlike Saudi Arabia, did have a revolution against its monarchy. As a result of the 1969 revolution led by Muammar Gaddafi, Libya was no longer in the sphere of influence of any imperialist country.

Libya had once been an impoverished colony of Italy living under the boot heel of the fascist Mussolini. After the Allied victory in World War II, control of the country was formally transferred to the United Nations and Libya became independent in 1951 with authority vested in the monarch King Idris.

But in actuality, Libya was controlled by the United States and Britain until the 1969 revolution.

One of the first acts of the 1969 revolution was to eliminate the vestiges of colonialism and foreign control. Not only were oil fields nationalized but Gaddafi eliminated foreign military bases inside the country.

In March of 1970, the Gaddafi government shut down two important British military bases in Tobruk and El Adem. He then became the Pentagon’s enemy when he evicted the U.S. Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli that had been operated by the United States since 1945. Before the British military took control in 1943, the facility was a base operated by the Italians under Mussolini.

Wheelus had been an important Strategic Air Command (SAC) base during the Cold War, housing B-52 bombers and other front-line Pentagon aircrafts that targeted the Soviet Union.

Once under Libyan control, the Gaddafi government allowed Soviet military planes to access the airfield.

In 1986, the Pentagon heavily bombed the base at the same time it bombed downtown Tripoli in an effort to assassinate Gaddafi. That effort failed but his 2-year-old daughter died along with scores of other civilians.

The Character of the Gaddafi Regime

The political, social and class orientation of the Libyan regime has gone through several stages in the last four decades. The government and ruling establishment reflected contradictory class, social, religious and regional antagonisms. The fact that the leadership of the NATO-led National Transition Council is comprised of top officials of the Gaddafi government, who broke with the regime and allied themselves with NATO, is emblematic of the decades-long instability within the Libyan establishment.

These inherent contradictions were exacerbated by pressures applied to Libya from the outside. The U.S. imposed far-reaching economic sanctions on Libya in the 1980s. The largest western corporations were barred from doing business with Libya and the country was denied access to credit from western banks.

In its foreign policy, Libya gave significant financial and military support to national liberation struggles, including in Palestine, Southern Africa, Ireland and elsewhere.

Because of Libya's economic policies, living standards for the population had jumped dramatically after 1969. Having a small population and substantial income from its oil production, augmented with the Gaddafi regime’s far-reaching policy of social benefits, created a huge advance in the social and economic status for the population. Libya was still a class society with rich and poor, and gaps between urban and rural living standards, but illiteracy was basically wiped out, while education and health care were free and extensively accessible. By 2010, the per capita income in Libya was near the highest in Africa at $14,000 and life expectancy rose to over 77 years, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book.

Gaddafi’s political orientation explicitly rejected communism and capitalism. He created an ideology called the “Third International Theory,” which was an eclectic mix of Islamic, Arab nationalist and socialist ideas and programs. In 1977, Libya was renamed the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. A great deal of industry, including oil, was nationalized and the government provided an expansive social insurance program or what is called a welfare state policy akin to some features prevalent in the Soviet Union and some West European capitalist countries.

But Libya was not a workers’ state or a “socialist government” to use the popular if not scientific use of the term “socialist.” The revolution was not a workers and peasant rebellion against the capitalist class per se. Libya remained a class society although class differentiation may have been somewhat obscured beneath the existence of revolutionary committees and the radical, populist rhetoric that emanated from the regime.

As in many developing, formerly colonized countries, state ownership of property was not “socialist” but rather a necessary fortification of an under-developed capitalist class. State property in Iraq, Libya and other such post-colonial regimes was designed to facilitate the social and economic growth of a new capitalist ruling class that was initially too weak, too deprived of capital and too cut off from international credit to compete on its own terms with the dominant sectors of world monopoly capitalism. The nascent capitalist classes in such developing economies promoted state-owned property, under their control, in order to intersect with Western banks and transnational corporations and create more favorable terms for global trade and investment.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the “socialist bloc” governments of central and Eastern Europe in 1989-91 deprived Libya of an economic and military counter-weight to the United States, and the Libyan government’s domestic economic and foreign policy shifted towards accommodation with the West.

In the 1990s some sectors of the Libyan economic establishment and the Gaddafi-led government favored privatization, cutting back on social programs and subsidies and integration into western European markets.

The earlier populism of the regime incrementally gave way to the adoption of neo-liberal policies. This was, however, a long process.

In 2004, the George W. Bush administration ended sanctions on Libya. Western oil companies and banks and other corporations initiated huge direct investments in Libya and trade with Libyan enterprises.

There was also a growth of unemployment in Libya and in cutbacks in social spending, leading to further inequality between rich and poor and class polarization.

But Gaddafi himself was still considered a thorn in the side of the imperialist powers. They want absolute puppets, not simply partners, in their plans for exploitation. The Wikileaks release of State Department cables between 2007 and 2010 show that the United states and western oil companies were condemning Gaddafi for what they called “resource nationalism.” Gaddafi even threatened to re-nationalize western oil companies’ property unless Libya was granted a larger share of the revenue for their projects.

As an article in today’s New York Times Business section said honestly: “"Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for the international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with."

Even the most recent CIA Fact Book publication on Libya, written before the armed revolt championed by NATO, complained of the measured tempo of pro-market reforms in Libya: “Libya faces a long road ahead in liberalizing the socialist-oriented economy, but initial steps— including applying for WTO membership, reducing some subsidies, and announcing plans for privatization—are laying the groundwork for a transition to a more market-based economy.” (CIA World Fact Book)

The beginning of the armed revolt on February 23 by disaffected members of the Libyan military and political establishment provided the opportunity for the U.S. imperialists, in league with their French and British counterparts, to militarily overthrow the Libyan government and replace it with a client or stooge regime.

Of course, in the revolt were workers and young people who had many legitimate grievances against the Libyan government. But what is critical in an armed struggle for state power is not the composition of the rank-and-file soldiers, but the class character and political orientation of the leadership.

Character of the National Transition Council

The National Transitional Council (NTC) constituted itself as the leadership of the uprising in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city. The central leader is Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who was Libya’s Minister of Justice until his defection at the start of the uprising. He was one of a significant number of Western-oriented and neoliberal officials from Libya’s government, diplomatic corps and military ranks who joined the opposition in the days immediately after the start of the revolt.

As soon as it was established, the NTC began issuing calls for imperialist intervention. These appeals became increasing panicky as it became clear that, contrary to early predictions that the Gaddafi-led government would collapse in a matter of days, it was the “rebels” who faced imminent defeat in the civil war. In fact, it was only due to the U.S./NATO bombing campaign, initiated with great hurry on March 19 that the rebellion did not collapse.

The last five months of war have erased any doubt about the pro-imperialist character of the NTC. One striking episode took place on April 22, when Senator John McCain made a “surprise” trip to Benghazi. A huge banner was unveiled to greet him with an American flag printed on it and the words: “United States of America – You have a new ally in North Africa.”

Similar to the military relationship between the NATO and Libyan “rebel” armed forces, the NTC is entirely dependent on and subordinated to the U.S., French, British and Italian imperialist governments.

If the Pentagon, CIA, and Wall Street succeed in installing a client regime in Tripoli it will accelerate and embolden the imperialist threats and intervention against other independent governments such as Syria and Venezuela. In each case we will see a similar process unfold, including the demonization of the leadership of the targeted countries so as to silence or mute a militant anti-war response to the aggression of the war-makers.

"They control the minds of the masses."

                                  

"They control the minds of the masses."

- Malcolm X (on American media power)

Perhaps my favorite illustration of life in a corporate propaganda state is the daily New York Times corrections box. Each morning, the newspaper of record comes clean about what it got wrong the day before.

For example, I remember a Times article that referred incorrectly to the status of Gwen Stefani’s tattoos. The next day, in the corrections box, came a dose of reality: Gwen Stefani has no permanent tattoos.

We can all sleep better knowing that Gwen Stefani has no permanent tattoosand secure in the knowledge that the media readily admits its mistakes. It’s all there in black and white—every single day—right?

Of course, the tacit message behind the daily New York Times corrections box is this: Besides a few minor typographical errors, everything else in yesterday’s paper was correct. It was accurate. It was, to use their phrase, fit to print…and has now passed on to become part of our official history. This is typical of life within a society dominated by a corporate-run press.

Whether you label them liberal or conservative, most major media outletsare large corporations owned by or aligned with even larger corporations, and they share a common goal: to make a profit by selling a product (an affluent audience) to a given market: advertisers.

Therefore, we shouldn’t find it too shocking that the image of the world being presented by a corporate-owned press very much reflects the biased interests of the elite players involved in this sordid little love triangle.

That’s why every major daily newspaper has a business section, but not a labor section. Why at least once a week, those same newspapers run an automobile section, but no bicycle section.

This is why when the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops, it makes headlines. But if the global extinction rate rises, it’s questionable if it'll even make the papers (and if it does, it’ll be buried in a small item on page 23).

If you created a blueprint for an apparatus that utterly erased critical thought, you could make none more efficient than the American corporate media.

Kill someone while wearing a uniform and you're a hero…do it in gang colors and you're a criminal. Hire a lawyer to help you find tax loopholes and you're a good businessman…make a few bucks off the books and you're a tax cheat. Sell cigarettes, alcohol and lottery tickets and you're an entrepreneur…smoke a joint and bet with a bookie: you're a menace to society.

Of all the beguiling propaganda tactics Corporate America has cultivated, the usurping of language is the greatest victory of all. Have you ever considered that also right after World War II the "Department of War" was renamed the "Defense Department"? Almost 70 years later, thanks to legions of pinstriped mountebanks, we exist in an age where helicopters named Apache are unselfconsciously used to quell (often alleged) ethnic cleansing.

It's all about setting standards and defining the accepted parameters. Yes, we can "have it our way," as long as we stay well within the range of choices being offered. We can “just do it” any time we damn well please. All we need is a $120 pair of sneakers. We've strayed so far from reality that even the most elementary truths have become obscured.

Show some flesh in a particular magazine and you're a pornographer…flash some skin on a public bus and you're a Calvin Klein ad. Collect food stamps and you're a welfare queen…hire a lobbyist to win government subsidies, tax breaks, and protectionist tariffs and you're a corporation.

Let's say you're a big city mayor and you want to institute a regressive tax on your city's poor residents. Easy, call it a "transit fare hike." Rich people don't ride the subway.

What if your company wants to dump toxic sludge on farmers to be used as fertilizer? Hire a massive public relations firm to give it a new image by renaming it "biosolids.”

There’s really nothing to it: Cars aren’t used, they’re pre-owned. Invasions aren’t invasions when they’re pre-emptive wars. Missiles aren't weapons, they're peacekeepers.

Claim that the Messiah regularly visits your suburban home and Mel Gibson’s faithful will beat a path to your door…claim to be the Messiah in Waco and they'll drive a tank through your living room. Serve the charred flesh of tortured animals and you're a gourmet…choose a lifestyle of compassion and logic and you're a zealot.

Since today's words have developed an uncanny knack for altering their meaning from situation to situation until they have no meaning at all, perhaps it's time for Americans to hold a mass dictionary burning. What good are definitions when they give peace prizes to men like to Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama—and so many of us believe these war criminals deserve such accolades?

As South African activist Steven Biko once said: “The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

Reprint State Department press releases verbatim and you're a respected investigative journalist…dig up the truth and you're gonna have a hell of a time trying to earn money as a writer.

With a nod to Guy Debord, I say it’s time we reinvent everyday life—steal it back from corporate propagandists and reintroduce the joy of living. Stop settling for less pain and start demanding more pleasure. Today’s progressives can provoke dramatic changes simply by refusing to submit to the societal formula they’re presented with.

We know what we feel…so no longer should we allow Hollywood, Madison Avenue, the government, or Corporate America to define us. We must trust our own instincts and break free from manufactured needs and illusory goals in order to cultivate new American Dreams (yes, plural):

• Dreams not for sale
• Dreams not based on celebrity
• Dreams not based on material consumption

Dreams not based on physical beauty

• Dreams not based on military conquest
• Dreams that promote unity and collective action while maintaining individuality and independence
• Dreams that challenge us to think for ourselves and about others

Breaking away from the omnipresent message of “work, consume, and obey authority without question” can be this generation’s way of challenging—and smashing—a culture that has us programmed to be more concerned with Gwen Stefani's tattoos than the corporate pirates raping the planet and controlling our minds.

Comrades, it’s time to rediscover the subversive pleasure of thinking for ourselves…

Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.

CIA penetrating Chna's "soft under-belly"

China has warned the U.S. that it will not tolerate continued spy flights of U.S. reconnaissance aircraft near its airspace. The Obama administration has countered that spy flights, like the U-2 flight recently intercepted by Chinese Sukhoi-27 fighters in the Straits of Taiwan, will continue.

The Obama administration appears intent on ratcheting up tensions with China. With Indian government acquiescence. Washington recently hosted a conference of leading Tibetan religious and political figures, including the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa, and the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, which is based in Dharamsala, India. President Obama angered the Chinese further by meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also adopted a confrontatonal approach with China concerning competing claims by China and Southeast Asian nations over disputed islands in the South China Sea.

The CIA has been authorized by the Obama White House to increase its penetration of tribal groups in Southeast Asia, along the Chinese southern border, in what could be described as China's "soft under-belly." Increased U.S. military cooperation with Vietnam also poses a threat to China's southern border with the CIA seeking intelligence-gathering facilities in northern Vietnam, near the Chinese border. The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has similar facilities in Mongolia, near the northern border of China.

WMR's Southeast Asian sources have reported that the CIA is increasing its influence operations among various tribal groups in northern Thailand and Burma that have historical ties to their fellow tribal members across the border in China's southern provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan.

The CIA, mostly through financial aid funneled through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is providing support, including that which has been described by those on the ground in northern Thailand, as "military" in nature, to various tribal groups, including the Akha, Tai Lue, N'tin, Hmong, and Khamu tribes in Nan province along the Thai border with Laos, as well as Doi Wawi Chinese, Karen, Lahu, Yao, Hmong, in the Wawi Valley District and Burmese Kachin and Karen tribal members who are refugees living in camps close to the border with Burma. The  CIA influence operations in around the Golden Triangle border intersection of Burma, Thailand, and Laos, according to our sources, are being carried out through the aegis of Baptist missionaries in northern Thailand and in the Mekong River region. At least one Baptist missionary active with tribes in northern Burma, was identified as CIA by the Burmese government and expelled.

USAID funds are being funneled to non-governmental organization (NGO) entities in northern Thailand, including the Mekong Minority Foundation, which receives USAID funding, according to our sources, from the Christian Tearfund charitable group, which is also active in east Africa, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Sudan. USAID funds are also being pumped into tribal groups in China's Yunnan province through Bless China International (BCI).

The CIA has had an off-and-on relationship with two professions that have been historically exempted from intelligence activities: missionaries and journalists. However, since 9/11, the CIA has renewed its use of both professions to carry out its covert activities, an activity that places bona fide missionaries and journalists in jeopardy abroad.

The Obama administration has adopted a much more hostile military and intelligence posture toward China than existed with the previous Bush administration.

Another "smoking gun" Breivik link to Israel

Although the mainstream corporate media and even a few "alternative news" websites are ignoring the proven links between Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik and Israel, yet another "smoking gun" connection between the pro-Zionist mass murderer and Israel has emerged.

Ninety minutes before Breivik was reported to have detonated a huge fertilizer-fuel bomb in the government district of downtown Oslo and then proceeding to Utoya island dressed as a uniformed police officer to massacre scores of youth attending a Norwegian Labor Party jamboree, he sent an email containing a 1500-page rambling manifesto to Isak Nygren, a member of the far-right, anti-Islamic and anti-Roma (gypsy), and pro-Zionist Sweden Democrats (SD) political party. Among Breivik's writings is this quote: "So let us fight together with Israel, with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists, against all cultural Marxists/multiculturalists."

Who is Isak Nygren? One will not see any mention of him in the English-language corporate media. Nygren is a pro-Israeli SD activist who is only 21 years old but has already run for municipal-level political office in his native province of Sodermanland and municipality of Katrineholm, Sweden. It is also noteworthy that Nygren was not in Sweden when he received Breivik's e-mail but, according to the July 24 edition of Sweden's Nyheter newspaper, was in Israel living on a kibbutz. The location of the kibbutz was not reported. There are other reports on Internet websites that Nygren is Jewish.
The only English-language media that reported Breivik's connection to Nygren is Die Presse of Vienna, Eskiltuna-Kurinen of Sweden,Sveriges Radio, Expo magazine of Sweden, the Berliner Zeitung of Germany, and Kurier  of Austria. To its credit, Nyheter is the only media outlet that officially reported on Breivik's connections to Nygren, in addition to Nygren's current presence in Israel.

The media blackout of Breivik's Israeli connections is largely the result of marching orders sent out from the Israel and Zionist lobby. The orders are clear: there will be no mention of Breivik's pro-Israeli stance nor his connections to individuals like Nygren. Attention to Breivik's Israeli and Jewish connections would expose Mossad's infiltration of neo-Nazi groups and political parties to turn them away from anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial and into anti-Islamic and pro-Israeli pressure movements. 

Nygren has stated that he is pro-Israel. However, he is also a member of the neo-Nazi Nordic Alliance, which has branches in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. There are now reports that last year Breivik attended a rally of the English Defense League (EDL) in London to hear Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders, an ardent anti-Muslim and supporter of Israel, to address the gathering. There are other reports that Breivik met with the leadership of the EDL and Wilders. The EDL's Swedish offshoot is the Swedish Defense League, which counts Nygren as one of its activists. In September 2010, the Danish leftist newspaper Arbejder pointed to possible links between Nygren and the xenophobic far-right Danish People's Party of Pia Kaersgaard, which provides parliamentary support for the current center-right Danish government.

Nygren's blog states that he has no connections with Breivik. However, in response to a request from a reporter for Austria's ORF television network about Breivik's use of .at domains to send e-mail to an entity called the "Vienna School," Nygren, from Israel, refused to cooperate. The reporter pointed out that in Austria, most e-mail addresses do not use the .at country domain for Austria but addresses like gmx.mail and other commercial addresses.

Nygren was interviewed by Sweden's English-language publication, Expo, and said he is opposed to mixed marriages between European women and "niggers, Asians, etc." Nygren also opposes adoption by Swedish parents of non-white children from abroad.  Nygren has advocated for the expulsion of Roma (gypsies) from Sweden and the mandatory "re-eduction" of Swedish Muslims. Last February, Nygren, according to the SVT Swedish television network, said, "As long as you do not live in Sweden so I do not care. I'm not attracted to the Negroes." 

The EDL, SD, Wilders, Nygren, and Zionists in the United States like Pam Geller, who Breivik admires, are all attempting to distance themselves from the Norwegian mass murderer. The "lone wolf" appellation being conferred on Breivik by his Zionist and neo-Nazi friends, as well as the English-speaking corporate media, is now neing undermined by reports of law enforcement investigations of Breivik's network, including the two additional operating cells he mentioned in an Oslo court room on July 25. The police investigations extend beyond Norway to France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Austria, Poland, and other countries.

However, the corporate media is still insisting that Breivik is a deranged single actor. Although, he is clearly deranged, even some alternate news outlets, while believing Breivik could not have acted alone, are continuing to ignore Breivik's connections to Israel and Zionist groups, pushing fanciful notions of involvement by NATO, Freemasons, and the Illuminati in Breivik's massacre.

One question is not being asked: Why is a correspondent who supports Breivik's thoughts on Muslims and non-whites in a kibbutz in Israel and not answering questions in a police station in Sweden?

After Oslo: Time to Crack Down On Mossad Terrorism

Wayne MADSEN (USA) | 25.07.2011 | 09:05

Israel’s most secret and tried-and-true weapon is the “false flag” terrorist attack. State-sponsored terrorism is defined by Encyclopedia Britannica as the “systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective [and] is employed by governments -- or more often by factions within governments -- against that government's citizens, against factions within the government, or against foreign governments or groups.” On July 22, a bomb, said to be an Oklahoma City-type explosive device, crafted with fertilizer and diesel fuel, blew up in downtown Oslo, Norway, in the heart of the government district. Shortly thereafter, a man dressed in a Norwegian police uniform opened fire on a Labor Party youth camp on the island of Utoya in Tyri fjord. Access to the island was by boat only.  Over 100 people were killed in the twin terror attacks. Almost immediately, the world’s corporate media began pushing the story that those who were responsible for the blast and mass shooting were associated with “Al Qaeda” and other radical Islamist groups. CNN’s Washington, DC chief anchor Wolf Blitzer, a former spokesman for the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby and a correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, began his late afternoon program by pointing to “Al Qaeda” and radical Islamists as the chief culprits for the terrorist attacks in Norway. CNN paraded out a number “experts,” in actuality, propagandists for the Israeli agenda linked to neo-conservative outlets and the Pentagon’s “terrorism industrial complex,” before the cameras to advance the radical Islamist meme even as Norwegian authorities pinned blame on the attack on at least one perpetrator, a Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik. CNN constantly showed footage of frightened people in downtown Oslo running for their lives from the site of the blast, as well as still photograph of a pall of light-brown smoke over downtown Oslo. Of course, CNN’s intention was to evoke memories of the 9/11 attack in Manhattan. Breivik, who sometimes anglicized his name as Andrew Berwick in his numerous web postings, was said to be a right-wing Islamophobe who sympathized with Zionism and who was a Freemason… Breivik was also reported to be a fundamentalist Christian but he adopted a stance against the Lutheran Church, the state church of Norway, and argued for a “collective” counter-reformation to return the Protestant churches to the control of the Vatican and the Pope. Breivik lambasted the Lutheran Church and other mainstream Protestant churches, condemning “Priests in jeans who march for Palestine.” More incredibly, the London tabloid of Rupert Murdoch’s scandal-plagued News International, The Sun, went to press with the following false headline: “Norway’s 911: ‘Al Qaeda’ Massacre.” On March 29, 2011, Harvard Law School’s extremist Zionist Professor Alan Dershowitz penned a piece in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, a newspaper that actively discriminates against the hiring of non-Jews as reporters and editors in violation of U.S. civil rights and equal opportunity employment laws, in which he called Norway anti-Semitic. Dershowitz cited as an example former Norwegian Prime Minister Kare Willock’s criticism of President Barack Obama’s choice of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff because he is Jewish. In fact, Emanuel’s pro- Israeli sympathies as a former member of the Israel Defense Force are what prompted many political observers in Washington and elsewhere to question his primary loyalty to the United States. A network of Israeli bloggers pushed a claim of responsibility on a previously-unknown group called Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami (the Helpers of the Global Jihad). The group’s claims were picked up and run by several corporate media outlets and then pulled when it was discovered the claim was a hoax. Mossad has a program to distribute bogus claims of responsibility for Islamist terrorist attacks via “Jihadist” websites that are actually operated by the Mossad and a network of “hasbaratchiks,” Israeli and foreign Jews who act as propagandists on the web. These hasbara (propaganda) agents and volunteers operate through such programs as Megaphone and GIYUS (“Give Israel Your United Support.”) After the attempt to blame the Norway attacks on Islamists failed, the “hasbaratchiks” shifted to “sock puppet” troll mode, posting comments on blogs that criticized allegations that Mossad and Zionists were behind the Norway attacks, emphasizing that such beliefs were “anti-Semitic” and wild “conspiracy theories.” Some Israeli “sock puppets” even offered lunatic suggestions that Breivik was planted by Islamists to make Israel and Zionists look bad. When the “Islamist” connection to the holocaust in Norway was shown to be non-existent after Norwegian security and police agencies began looking at the evidence, the corporate media switched its propaganda line from “radical Islam” being responsible to “far –right extremism” opposed to multiculturalism and immigration in Europe as the culprit. Even outlets that in the past had been known for their independence from the corporate media line, including Al Jazeera and RT [formerly known as Russia Today], echoed the line that Breivik primarily represented right-wing opposition to Muslim immigrants in Europe. Al Jazeera repeated the line that Breivik was a “lone madman,” the insinuation being that he was not linked to any wider network. While Breivik certainly was associated with the far-right xenophobic elements in Norway, Europe, and North America, there was no mention by the corporate media of his admiration for such American Zionist Islamophobes as Richard Pipes and Pam Geller. Geller led the bigoted anti-Muslim campaign against an Islamic Center near the site of “Ground Zero,” the former World Trade Center site, in lower Manhattan. Breivik posted a number of his anti-Muslim and pro-Zionist screeds on the Norwegian website www.document.no, which is operated by Hans-Kristian Rustad, a Norwegian pro-Israeli journalist. No corporate media outlets reported that the brand of far-right extremism of Breivik is closely associated with Zionist-supported far-right anti-immigrant political parties and movements in Western Europe, including the mis-named Progress Party of Norway, the Dutch Freedom Party of Islamophobe Geert Wilders, the Sweden Democrats, Finland’s True Finns Party, the Danish People’s Party, the English Defense League, the Pro-Germany Citizen’s Movement, and a pan-Nordic fascist terrorist group called “Nordiske.” Breivik also expressed support for the Tea Party in the United States…  The European anti-Muslim xenophobic network is linked to the notorious publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons by the neo-conservative Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and Norway’s Dagbladet. The Euro-xenophobes are supported by the longtime Zionist Bernard-Henri Levy, the French philosopher who is a friend of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and disgraced former International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. It is noteworthy that Levy is one of the major backers of the Libyan rebels fighting Muammar Qaddafi. Norway announced it was pulling its aircraft from the NATO campaign in Libya at the end of July. Norway also announced its support for Palestine’s sovereignty resolution in the UN General Assembly in September. As more and more evidence pointed to Oslo being yet another example of a state-sponsored terrorist attack by Israel’s Mossad, the corporate media studiously avoided mentioning how the Norwegian government through its recent actions, had become a major problem for Israel and its allies abroad, especially on the Palestine sovereignty issue… In addition, Norwegian police and intelligence are painfully aware of Mossad’s past operations in Norway, including the infamous Lillehammer Affair in 1973. On July 21, 1973, Mossad agents assassinated Ali Hassan Salameh, a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer, wrongly believing he was the operations chief for the Palestinian terrorist group “Black September.” Norwegian police arrested the Mossad agents who killed Salameh and uncovered an intricate network of Mossad safe houses, phone numbers, and Norwegian sleeper agents for Mossad. Just as was the case with the coordinated bombings of Madrid trains on March 22, 2004 and London buses and trains on July 7, 2005, viewed by European security services as being the work of not “Al Qaeda” but domestic “radicals,” there was no link to Islamist radicals with the attacks in Norway. However, there was every indication that the attack on Norway was intended to shake up the Norwegian population and damage the reputation of the left-of-center Norwegian government of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The corporate media insisted that Breivik was solely responsible for Norway’s worst violent attack since World War II. Norwegian police reports that a second gunman, described as having “thick dark hair and a non-Nordic appearance,” were suppressed in much of the corporate media. The time line of the Oslo attack causes anyone’s imagination to be stretched on being sold a “lone gunman/bomber” theory. At 3:26 pm Oslo time a massive car bomb was detonated outside the office of the Prime Minister of Norway. Since July 22 was a public holiday, there were relatively few people inside the Prime Minister’s office or the surrounding offices of the Petroleum and Energy Ministry and the VG [Verdens Gang] newspaper, Norway’s largest paper. As police responded to the downtown Oslo blast, Breivik was said to have taken a boat the Utoya island dressed as a policeman and began opening fire on young members of the Norwegian Labor Party youth camp meeting. The shooting allegedly began at 4:50 pm. Norwegian SWAT team “Delta” had trouble getting a helicopter started and struggled to find a boat to get to Utoya island. The SWAT team finally arrived on the island at 6:20 pm only to find scores of the next generation of Norwegian Labor Party leaders dead. Breivik calmly surrendered to the police. When Breivik arrived on Utoya he told police on the island that he was there for a routine security check following the bombing in downtown Oslo. Norway’s Acting Police chief Sveinung Sponheim said the police were still investigating whether Breivik was acting with a larger network. Sponheim’s revelation countered the “lone wolf” theory advanced by corporate media outlets in Western nations. Norway’s coalition Labor-Socialist Left government has been seen as hostile to the interests of Israel and the United States. There is now a widespread belief that the terrorist attack against Norway was engineered to shock erstwhile peaceful Norway, a nation where police generally still patrol the streets unarmed, into adopting the police state tactics of the United States, Israel, Britain, and other Western nations. Norway’s pro-Palestinian foreign policy also irked the Zionist and the far-right anti-Islamic factions in Europe and North America, as well as the governments of Israel and the United States. In a move that complements American and Israeli propaganda that Norway has not stepped up to the surveillance state model imposed by other Western governments, the suspicious WikiLeaks decided to release U.S. State Department cables from the U.S. embassy in Oslo that criticized Norway for not recognizing the “Al Qaeda” threat and maintaining an insufficient security apparatus to combat Islamist terrorism and Pakistani immigrants. The Barack Obama-appointed U.S. ambassador in Oslo, Barry White, who is Jewish and received a 2005 award from the pro-Israel American Jewish Committee, complained that the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) rejected two twelve-person British MI-6 intelligence surveillance teams to monitor an “Al Qaeda” cell in Norway.  Last November, the Norwegian government was shocked to learn that the U.S. embassy was operating a Surveillance Detection Unit in Oslo that was monitoring Norwegian citizens. Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget said he was not informed of the presence of the U.S. spy unit in Oslo, which employed retired Norwegian police and intelligence officials. The Norwegian Data Protection Commissioner, Bjorn Erik Thon, said he had never seen such an intelligence operation in Norway. White complained that Norwegian security officials were apathetic and incompetent in dealing with the Islamist “terrorist threat.” The failure of the Norwegian SWAT team to quickly respond to the massacre on Utoya may indicate that Norway’s law enforcement and security networks and command-and-control systems had been interfered with by infiltrators with knowledge of the Norwegian systems. Those retired police and intelligence officials working for the U.S. embassy’s surveillance unit are likely suspects in sabotaging the Norwegian police reaction capabilities on 7/22. Just 48 hours before the bombing in Oslo, police units were engaged in a terrorist bombing exercise at the Oslo Opera House, near what would later be “ground zero.” In addition, in the days before the terrorist bombing, there was suspicious sewer work being conducted in the area near the Prime Minister’s office. In March, the leader of the Socialist Left, Kristen Halvorsen, the Minister of Education of Norway and a former Finance Minister, called for military action against Israel if it attacked Gaza. The Socialist Left and Labor Party, along with the Norwegian Peace Association and the Norwegian energy and telecommunications union, strongly support the Boycott Israel campaign, which includes backing the pan-European Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) committee and an embargo on arms sales to the Jewish state.  In August 2010, the Norwegian pension fund divested in two Israeli companies controlled by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and its subsidiary Danya Cebus. Halvorsen had recently met with a delegation of American Jews who complained about Norway’s “anti-Semitism,” the tired and worn-out canard used by Zionists in confronting anti-Israeli sentiment around the world. In January, Halvorsen and her husband, Christo Halvorsen, a producer for the Norsk Rikskringkasting (NRK) television and radio network, took part in an anti-Israel and U.S. march in Oslo where picket signs with phrases like “USA and Israel: Axis of Evil” appeared. The Halvorsens and NRK were subjected to a vicious campaign launched by Zionists and the Israel Lobby in Norway. Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of the Labor Party has been criticized by the Israel Lobby and Zionists for comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews. Støre has also called for the demolition of Israel’s “Separation Wall” that runs through Palestinian territory on the West Bank, a stance that has earned him enmity and hatred from Israel’s government and their Zionist allies in the West. Store paid a visit to Utoya before the massacre. The Foreign Minister was on the island as some of the Labor Party youth were participating in a “Boycott Israel” demonstration. The city of Trondheim was criticized by Israel for funding a trip to the UN in New York for Norwegian students to participate in a play called the “Gaza Monologues.” Israel also blasted Norway for distributing a film called “Tears of Gaza.” After Israel offered assistance to Norway, including forensic and medical assistance, as well as the evacuation of the wounded from the 7/22 attack, Norway declined the offer.  The rejection of assistance from Israel indicates that the Norwegian government was suspicious of the offer from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Other Israeli military teams in the West Bank have been accused of trafficking in human organs, an expose brought to light by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet in August 2009. That same month, Israel’s anti-Arab and anti-Muslim Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Sweden and Norway of anti-Semitism, adding the outrageous charge that Norway was pro-Nazi, even though Norway’s anti-Muslim and pro-Zionist activists were affiliated with neo-Nazi organizations. On December 11, 2010, a suspicious terrorist explosion took place in downtown Stockholm, injuring two people and blamed on a Swedish-Iraqi suicide bomber.  The bombing took place two weeks after the Swedish media reported that a Surveillance Detection Unit, operated form the U.S. embassy in Stockholm, was spying on Swedish citizens. In the past few months, the Mossad has committed blatant acts of espionage and possible other terrorist attacks against nations it perceives as pro-Palestinian. During last year’s devastating earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, a team of Mossad agents was caught in the city. One of the agents died in the quake. The Mossad agents were found with multiple passports and thumb drives believed to have been used to download sensitive data from New Zealand government computer systems. New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key, who seemingly came from obscurity in New Zealand politics and whose Jewish mother immigrated from England, disregarded claims of Mossad espionage during the quake, even though he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu four times on the day of the quake, after the dead Mossad agent was discovered by New Zealand police and intelligence. New Zealand’s Southland Times was criticized by New Zealand’s Jewish community and Israel for promoting “conspiracy theories,” the typical modus operandi for pro-Israeli Jews, known as sayanim and katsas, who are used by Israel abroad as propaganda and espionage agents. Ironically, Key was meeting with Obama at the White House as the bombing and shootings were occurring in Norway. Key was believed to have attended the homo-erotic annual meeting of a men-only fraternity composed of American and foreign political and business elitists at the secluded Bohemian Grove in northern California, a conclave that also saw the attendance of Israel’s most notorious agent-of-influence in America, Henry Kissinger, who also serves as Obama’s “special envoy” to the Russian leadership. Key’s Labor Party predecessor, Helen Clark, was the subject of criticism in leaked 2004 State Department cables from the U.S. embassy in Wellington for cracking down on a Mossad team’s acquisition of forged New Zealand passports. Once again, the cable leaks were courtesy of the suspect WikiLeaks operation. One of the Mossad perpetrators, Zev William Barkan, who fled New Zealand to avoid arrest, had also been reported in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, where he and other Israelis were producing pornographic and “snuff” movies, in which unsuspecting vagrants were murdered on camera. In Egypt, Mossad agents have been accused by the present government of fomenting riots between Muslims and Coptic Christians. A recent explosion of seized Iranian weapons and ammunition being stored at a Cypriot naval base, a blast that killed the head of the Cypriot Navy, remains suspicious. The blast followed the decision of Cyprus’s left-of-center government to recognize the sovereignty of Palestine. The resulting public outrage over the blast resulted in the resignation of pro-Palestinian Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou and a major political embarrassment for Cyprus’s president Dimitris Christofias, a member of the Communist AKEL party. Mossad is a master at false-flag terrorist attacks designed to alter perceptions and punish opponents of Israeli policy. The fingerprints of Israeli intelligence are all over the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the 3/22 train bombings in Madrid, the 7/7 transit bombings in London, and, now, the 7/22 attacks in Norway… While the Israeli-influenced corporate media has droned on and on about the dangers of Islamist terrorism, it is now obvious that the major threat to public safety comes from the State of Israel, a rogue nation that does not hesitate to murder the innocent to achieve its sordid political aims.