by CONN HALLINAN
In his essay, “Top Ten Myths about the Libyan War,” Juan Cole argues that U.S. interests in the conflict consisted of stopping “massacres of people,” a “lawful world order,” “the NATO alliance,” and oddly, “the fate of Egypt.” It is worth taking a moment to look at each of these arguments, as well as his dismissal of the idea that the U.S./NATO intervention had anything to do with oil as “daft.”
Massacres are bad things, but the U.S. has never demonstrated a concern for them unless its interests were at stake. It made up the “massacre” of Kosovo Albanians in order to launch the Yugoslav War, and ended up acquiring one of the largest U.S. bases in the world, Camp Bond Steel. It has resolutely ignored the massacre of Palestinians and Shiites in Bahrain because it is not in Washington’s interests to concern itself with those things. …
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/26/the-myth-of-libyan-liberation(reposted due to link problem in previous post)
The bombing campaign to “protect civilians”, the insurgents in a medium-sized city, has apparently turned into a major catastrophe for the inhabitants of the Libyan capital right now. It is not entirely clear to what extent the NATO special forces finally admitted to be on the ground direct the insurgents. But we already hear about the results of what we have supported.
As Kim Sengupta in in Abu Salim, Tripoli reports “There was no escape for the residents of Abu Salim, trapped as the fighting spread all around them. In the corner of a street, a man who was shot in the crossfire, the back of his blue shirt soaked in blood, was being carried away by three others. ‘I know that man, he is a shopkeeper,’ said Sama Abdessalam Bashti, who had just run across the road to reach his home. ‘The rebels are attacking our homes. This should not be happening. The rebels are saying they are fighting government troops here, but all those getting hurt are ordinary people, the only buildings being damaged are those of local people. There has also been looting by the rebels, they have gone into houses to search for people and taken away things. Why are they doing this?” (read more in
The Independent).
Amnesty reveals evidence of torture“About two dozen bodies - some with their hands bound by plastic ties and with bullet wounds to the head - lay scattered on grassy lots in an area where Gadhafi sympathizers had camped out for months. The identities of the dead were unclear, but they were in all likelihood activists who had set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with Gadhafi in defiance of the NATO bombing campaign.”
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/08/25/general-ml-libya_8643369.html50 per cent of the wounded are women and children, say Médecins Sans Frontières and warn of a medical catastrophe.
http://www.20min.ch/news/ausland/story/24234739http://www.msf.org.za/publication/tripoli-libya-%E2%80%9Calmost-all-hospitals-around-city-are-receiving-wounded%E2%80%9D
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