Posts

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Gaddafi’s Revenge

Bob Fitrakis
September 13, 2012

As a direct result of the illegal United States-led attack on Gaddafi and the subsequent coup, pan-Islamic fundamentalists killed the U.S. ambassador and three other American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya Tuesday, on the anniversary of 9/11. As anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan recently noted, “Libya today is the creation of the U.S., NATO, and Al Qaeda, acting in a criminal partnership.”

The Obama administration referred to their efforts that led to the unleashing of al Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalists in Libya as a “kinetic humanitarian action.” In reality, it was regime change, a hi-jacking of resources, and an illegal war.

Libya, under Gaddafi, was stable. Gaddafi had nationalized Libyan oil resources and his nation had one of the highest standards of living in Africa and in the Middle East. At the time he was overthrown by the U.S.-led coalition, he was busy promoting an African currency and a continental development bank to liberate all the natural resources of Africa from the International Monetary Fund. In fact, Gaddafi bragged that he was the first state leader to issue an international arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden.

When the disorganized group of Islamic fundamentalists first rose up in Benghazi, it was the U.S. and NATO who provided legitimacy and aided in the organization of the Transitional Council. One of the first things that the Council did, was seize Libya’s central bank which controlled an estimated 144 tons of gold.

Libya was plunged into chaos through Obama and NATO’s actions. While the U.S. and other Western mainstream corporate media savagely denounced Gaddafi, they conveniently ignored the obvious al Qaeda operatives that would come forward after his removal.

We could pretend that the current crisis in Libya is simply the unintended and unpredictable consequences of a humanitarian intervention. What we would have to do is ignore the facts. Almost a year ago, ABC News reported that former Gaddafi regime hand-held missiles were popping up at Egyptian bazaars and that the going price for a heat-seeking shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile had dropped from $10,000 to $4,000. ABC later reported that out of the estimated 20,000 portable surface-to-air missiles in Gaddafi’s arsenal, 15,000 were missing.

The CIA has a term for unintended consequences — “blowblack.” That term has no application in the current Libyan crisis. Blowback implies that results are unintended. A much better thesis is provided by former high-ranking CIA official John Stockwell, who in his book In Search of Enemies, offers the perspective that the U.S. military industrial complex and its cohorts in the security industrial agencies intentionally keep the third world in chaos and turmoil to justify their unprecedented budgets.

Amidst this predictable chaos, it is much easier for the former colonialist nations of NATO to extract 144 tons of gold and vast oil and gas reserve from the once independent nation of Libya, now a haven for Islamic terrorists.

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Bob Fitrakis was part of Cynthia McKinney’s group visiting Libya in 2009 for the Conference on the Study of the Green Book, and was in Gaddafi’s tent. See Bob’s article from earlier this year on Libya at Article

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Disband NATO

by Bob Fitrakis

This Memorial Day, our nation should honor our war dead by either withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or, better yet, completely dismantling the obsolete Cold War defense pact. NATO exists today not to defend against aggressive authoritarian Communism, but to steal resources from weaker non-European countries by military force. Its two most recent military actions made the May 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago a gathering of war criminals.

NATO was established in April 1949 at the height of the Cold War and the creation of the so-called “Iron Curtain” dividing Eastern and Western Europe. In 1955, the Soviet bloc countered with its own military organization, the Warsaw Pact. The current 28 NATO member nations account for an estimated 70% of the world’s defense spending.

East and West Germany reunified in October 1990. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991 along with the Warsaw Pact. NATO achieved its goal as a defensive pact of defending Western Europe from the Soviet bloc.

But now, it stalks the Earth like a vampire, existing only to hijack resources from non-Western nations. NATO’s trajectory since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been toward a new Western imperialism.

First there was the intervention into the Yugoslavian civil war in the 1990s. The Yugoslavian campaign included a 78-day bombardment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Over 500 civilians died.

NATO shifted its activities away from Europe when it invoked Article V of its charter for the first time in its history. Article V states that an attack on any one member of NATO can be considered an attack on the entire alliance. After invoking Article V, NATO became an offensive military organization under the domination of the United States following the events of 9/11. NATO’s support for the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan was arguable legal.

Still, NATO’s greatest sin, and one that makes it an organization of war criminals, stems from its involvement in the illegal U.S. and British attack on Iraq in 2003. NATO formed the NATO Training Mission — Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces in conjunction with the U.S. and the coalition of the willing. NATO claimed to be responding to the request of the Iraqi interim government, a puppet government installed after the illegal U.S. invasion.

NATO’s more than 7-year training mission in Iraq underscores the need for the defensive alliance to disband. In 2011, NATO intervened illegally in the Libyan civil war. NATO planes flew over 950 airstrikes against pro-Gadaffi forces. Without NATO’s violent and vicious attack on the Gadaffi regime, the Libyan government would have remained in power.

In both Iraq and Libya, NATO’s job is to assist the U.S. in jacking the oil of Third World people. NATO, like any vampire, needs a stake put through its heart.

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Disband NATO

by Bob Fitrakis

This Memorial Day, our nation should honor our war dead by either withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or, better yet, completely dismantling the obsolete Cold War defense pact. NATO exists today not to defend against aggressive authoritarian Communism, but to steal resources from weaker non-European countries by military force. Its two most recent military actions made the May 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago a gathering of war criminals.

NATO was established in April 1949 at the height of the Cold War and the creation of the so-called “Iron Curtain” dividing Eastern and Western Europe. In 1955, the Soviet bloc countered with its own military organization, the Warsaw Pact. The current 28 NATO member nations account for an estimated 70% of the world’s defense spending.

East and West Germany reunified in October 1990. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991 along with the Warsaw Pact. NATO achieved its goal as a defensive pact of defending Western Europe from the Soviet bloc.

But now, it stalks the Earth like a vampire, existing only to hijack resources from non-Western nations. NATO’s trajectory since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been toward a new Western imperialism.

First there was the intervention into the Yugoslavian civil war in the 1990s. The Yugoslavian campaign included a 78-day bombardment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Over 500 civilians died.

NATO shifted its activities away from Europe when it invoked Article V of its charter for the first time in its history. Article V states that an attack on any one member of NATO can be considered an attack on the entire alliance. After invoking Article V, NATO became an offensive military organization under the domination of the United States following the events of 9/11. NATO’s support for the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan was arguable legal.

Still, NATO’s greatest sin, and one that makes it an organization of war criminals, stems from its involvement in the illegal U.S. and British attack on Iraq in 2003. NATO formed the NATO Training Mission — Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces in conjunction with the U.S. and the coalition of the willing. NATO claimed to be responding to the request of the Iraqi interim government, a puppet government installed after the illegal U.S. invasion.

NATO’s more than 7-year training mission in Iraq underscores the need for the defensive alliance to disband. In 2011, NATO intervened illegally in the Libyan civil war. NATO planes flew over 950 airstrikes against pro-Gadaffi forces. Without NATO’s violent and vicious attack on the Gadaffi regime, the Libyan government would have remained in power.

In both Iraq and Libya, NATO’s job is to assist the U.S. in jacking the oil of Third World people. NATO, like any vampire, needs a stake put through its heart.

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Bob’s Radio Shows This Week: Michael Parenti Podcast

Bob Fitrakis on “Fight Back”: Michael Parenti
Bob interviews Michael Parenti, author, scholar, activist, currently on the advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network, Education Without Borders, and the Jasenovic Foundation; as well as the advisory editorial boards of New Political Science and Nature, Society and Thought. He is the author of twenty-three books
Listen and call in this Wednesday, April 11
7 – 8 PM
Call 877-932-9766

Here’s how to call in to the LIVE INTERNET radio show:
(on your computer – not on your broadcast radio dial)
On Wednesday nights at 7:00 pm
Go to: http://talktainmentradio.com
Click on “Listen Live”
Call 877-932-9766
All shows rebroadcast on WCRSFM community radio 98.3/102.1 Wednesdays at 8pm
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Bob’s WVKO 1580AM radio show Saturday, April 14 – 11am-12noon
Call in @ 1-614-821-1580
Talking about the OSU project on the near east side including Poindexter Village with Deborah Steele of Jobs with Justice and others.

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Bob’s Talktainment Radio This Week: Wayne Madsen

Bob’s Talktainment Radio show guest this week: Wayne Madsen
Listen and call in this Wednesday
June 29 from 7 – 8 PM – 1-877-932-9766

Wayne Madsen just returned from a trip with Cynthia McKinney to Libya in the midst of the U.S. bombing campaign. He is a Washington, D.C.-based author, columnist, and self-described investigative journalist specializing in intelligence and international affairs. He has written for The Village Voice, The Progressive, CounterPunch, CorpWatch, Multinational Monitor, CovertAction Quarterly, In These Times, and The American Conservative. His columns have appeared in The Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Sacramento Bee, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among others. He is the author of the blog Wayne Madsen Report. He has been described by critics including Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic Monthly, CBS, and Salon as a conspiracy theorist

Here’s how to call in to the LIVE INTERNET radio show:
(on your computer – not on your broadcast radio dial)

On Wednesday nights at 7:00 pm
Go to: http://talktainmentradio.com
Click on “Listen Live”
Bob’s program “Fight Back!” will be on
Call 877-932-9766

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North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Barbary Pirates Of Imperialism?

Bob Fitrakis

NATO: The New Barbary Pirates
May 23, 2011

How did the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) go from a collective defense organization to the new Barbary Pirates of imperialism?

During the 2011 Libyan uprising, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973 which called for a ceasefire and authorized military action to protect civilian lives. A coalition formed, centered around NATO with the March 17, 2011 passing of the Resolution. Its purpose – a so-called “no-fly zone” over Libya.

The irony that the U.S.-dominated NATO military organization would be concerned with “protecting” Arab civilians is all too obvious since the United States is the nation most responsible for killing Arab civilians. The U.S. is the home of the mass-murdering Bush clan whose policies are usually continued by their junior partners in the Democratic Party, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) in its January-February 2008 issue pointed out that 1 million people had died in Iraq as a result of the U.S. invasion. The for-profit corporate media likes to focus on just the casualties that result from U.S. military forces. If we take a far more moral and logical approach, asking the question — Had we not invaded the country and dismantled the government, police and military, how many more Iraqi civilians would be alive today?

Lancet, the highly regarded British medical journal, estimated that 100,000 Iraqis were killed during the first year of the war. In July 2006, Johns Hopkins Medical School estimated that 650,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed. President George W. Bush went so far as to accuse Johns Hopkins of having a “political agenda.”

But George W. Bush is not the first mass murderer of Arab civilians. His father George Herbert Walker Bush, with the aid of the Clinton administration, were responsible for the deaths of more than a million Iraqis. Roughly half a million of these were children. The deliberate bombing of Iraqi water and sewage facilities, hospitals and other key infrastructure during the first Gulf War caused most of these death.

Back in 1996, Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeliene Albright made her notorious comments to CBS’ Lesley Stahl that “We think the price is worth it” in reference to the killing of 500,000 Iraqi children. Many of these children died as a direct result of the U.S. embargo of medical and other essential supplies.

The most interesting question that arose when the world’s foremost war criminal, George W. Bush, the mass murderer of Arabs, walks free in the United States is – How can the U.S. public be sold such an obvious lie about NATO’s concern for Iraqi civilians?

The real reasons for the attack have been dealt with most directly by America’s famous reformed “economic hitman,” John Perkins.

Perkins points out the that attack on Libya, like the attack on Iraq, has to do with power and control of resources, not only oil, but gold. Libya has the highest standard of living in Africa. “According to the IMF, Libya’s Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults,” Perkins wrote.

NATO is there like modern Barbary Pirates – to loot Libya’s gold. The Russian media, in addition to Perkins, reported that the Pan-Africanist Qaddafi, the former President of the African Union, had been advocating that Africa use the gold so plentiful in Libya and South Africa to create an African currency based on a gold dinar.

“It is significant that in the months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the U.S. and its allies to send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi was openly advocating the creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and the rest of the world only for gold dinars,” Perkins explained.

What we are witnessing in Libya is old-fashioned 19th century imperialism – the deliberate plundering of a sovereign nation-state’s resources by more powerful Western conquistadors.

Under the neo-colonialism favored after World War II during the period of the Cold War, we preferred to bribe various African leaders to help us loot their nation’s resources. The U.S., of course, killed any Pan-African aspirations as well as potential leaders like Patrice Lumumba.

This highjacking of Arab and African resources and slaughtering of Arab civilians is a long-standing plan put forth by neo-conservatives in the United States. The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) has had a “hit list” of Arab nations and little regard for Arab casualties.

General Wesley Clark wrote in “Winning Modern Wars” that “As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we are still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there was a total of seven countries beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan.

The presence of the 2008 Green Party presidential candidate and former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney in Libya underscores the bipartisan nature of the brutal new imperialism embraced at the highest level by the Democratic and Republican Parties.

As NATO war planes attempt to assassinate the leader of a sovereign nation to steal its gold and plunder the oil, McKinney has had the courage to speak out: “I think that it’s very important that people understand what is happening here. And it’s important that people all over the world see the truth. And that is why I am here … to understand the truth,” she told CNN.

McKinney’s trip to Libya is courageous and we should applaud her willingness to say what is backed by the facts. She stated, “I want to say categorically and very clearly that these policies of war … are not what the people of the United States stand for, and it’s not what African-Americans stand for.”

Perkins also wrote: “Understanding the war against Quaddafi as a war in defense of empire is another step in the direction of helping us ask ourselves whether we want to continue along this path of empire-building.”

History has relegated a slew of over-extended militaristic empires to its dustbins – from ancient Egypt and classical Greece to the Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, Spanish conquistadors, and Brits. The current American imperialism and plunder will end the same way. American patriots should do everything we can to dismantle our empire and return the republic to the people.

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Bob Fitrakis accompanied Cynthia McKinney on a delegation to Libya in 2009 for the First International Conference on the World Green Book Supporters Society.

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