Kucinich: Try NATO Commanders as War Criminals

NEWSMAX

Tuesday, 23 Aug 2011

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has been an outspoken critic of U.S. military action in Libya since it began six months ago, even saying President Barack Obama’s policy amounted to “an impeachable offense.”

Now, as Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s regime appears to be toppling, Kucinich is ramping up his criticism with the contention that NATO commanders in Libya should be tried in court for killing civilians, Politico reports.

“NATO’s top commanders may have acted under color of international law, but they are not exempt from international law,” Kucinich said in a statement issued today.

“If members of the Gadhafi regime are to be held accountable, NATO’s top commanders must also be held accountable through the International Criminal Court for all civilian deaths resulting from bombing,” Kucinich said. “Otherwise, we will have witnessed the triumph of a new international gangsterism.”

April Fools

A World View Interview with Benjamin Netanyahu



Uploaded by israelnews on Mar 31, 2011

Channel 2 and YouTube bring you a special interview with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, in which citizens ask questions about the peace process, unrest in the Middle East, and more.

Hogwash, how about the question about Israel funding of mercenaries? This was brought up by Firedoglake in early May, but, of course, not repeated in the main stream media, so the question is...


Did the Israeli government authorize the Israeli company, Global CST, to finance and arm and supply Gaddafi with 50,000 African Mercenaries?



The US demands that Israeli-funded African Mercenaries be granted Immunity from War Crimes!

FireDogLake

By: marsdragon Friday March 4, 2011 9:29 am
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Edward Teller first posted a story about this yesterday, but its not up on the front pages anymore so, I need to hat tip him first by linking to it here.

Second, I want to add some more details that have come to my attention since he posted it. This story is important because it involves the potential use of US Military personnel in a theater of war where they may be harmed, and it involves the use of US tax dollars to pay for those forces. It also involves the right of an indigenous people, Libyans, to determine their future for themselves, and how they have risen up to oppose a brutal tyrant of over 40 years. Finally, this story involves the potential that our Commander-in-Chief and President, Barack Obama, may be lying through his teeth to us, the American people, and that NATO, the United Nations Security Council, and other European nations may also be doing one thing but claiming to do another.

~More~

Iraq ~ Afghanistan ~ Libya: Haven't we been here before?

Libya: Largest Military Undertaking since the Invasion of Iraq. Towards a Protracted Military Operation

 by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, March 20, 2011

Outright lies by the international media: Bombs and missiles are presented as an instrument  of peace and democratization...
This is not a humanitarian operation. The war on Libya opens up a new regional war theater.
There are three distinct war theaters in the Middle East Central Asian region. Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq.
What is unfolding is a fourth US-NATO War Theater in North Africa, with the risk of escalation.
These four war theaters are functionally related, they are part of an integrated US-NATO military agenda.

The bombing of Libya has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for several years as confirmed by former NATO commander General Wesley Clark.
Operation Odyssey Dawn is acknowledged as the "biggest Western military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq began exactly eight years ago." (Russia: Stop 'indiscriminate' bombing of Libya - Taiwan News Online, March 19, 2011).
This war is part of the battle for oil. Libya is among the World's largest oil economies with approximately 3.5% of global oil reserves, more than twice those of the US.
The underlying objective is to gain control over Libya's oil and gas reserves under the disguise of a humanitarian intervention.
The geopolitical and economic implications of a US-NATO led military intervention directed against Libya are far-reaching.
"Operation Odyssey Dawn " is part of  a broader military agenda in the Middle East and Central Asia which consists in gaining control and corporate ownership over more than sixty percent of the world's reserves of oil and natural gas, including oil and gas pipeline routes.
With 46.5 billion barrels of proven reserves, (10 times those of Egypt), Libya is the largest oil economy in the African continent followed by Nigeria and Algeria (Oil and Gas Journal). In contrast, US proven oil reserves are of the order of 20.6 billion barrels (December 2008) according to the Energy Information Administration.  U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves).
Largest Military Undertaking since the Invasion of Iraq
A military operation of this size and magnitude, involving the active participation of several NATO member and partner countries is never improvised. Operation Odyssey Dawn was in the advanced stages of military planning prior to the protest movement in Egypt and Tunisia. 
Public opinion was led to believe that the protest movement had spread spontaneously from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya.   
The armed insurgency in Eastern Libya is directly supported by foreign powers. Rebel forces in Benghazi immediately hoisted the red, black and green banner with the crescent and star: the flag of the monarchy of King Idris, which symbolized the rule of the former colonial powers. (See  Manlio Dinucci, Libya-When historical memory is erased, Global Research, February 28, 2011)
The insurrection was also planned and coordinated with the timing of the military operation. It had been carefully planned months ahead of the protest movement, as part of a covert operation.
US, British special forces were reported to be on the ground "helping the opposition" right from the outset.
What we are dealing with is a military roadmap, a timeline of carefully planned military and intelligence events.

Read more @ GlobalResearch.ca

Chris Hedges: US & Israel policies inMiddle East

What Corruption and Force Have Wrought in Egypt


truthdig Posted on Jan 30, 2011

By Chris Hedges

The uprising in Egypt, although united around the nearly universal desire to rid the country of the military dictator Hosni Mubarak, also presages the inevitable shift within the Arab world away from secular regimes toward an embrace of Islamic rule. Don’t be fooled by the glib sloganeering about democracy or the facile reporting by Western reporters—few of whom speak Arabic or have experience in the region. Egyptians are not Americans. They have their own culture, their own sets of grievances and their own history. And it is not ours. They want, as we do, to have a say in their own governance, but that say will include widespread support—especially among Egypt’s poor, who make up more than half the country and live on about two dollars a day—for the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic parties. Any real opening of the political system in the Arab world’s most populated nation will see an empowering of these Islamic movements. And any attempt to close the system further—say a replacement of Mubarak with another military dictator—will ensure a deeper radicalization in Egypt and the wider Arab world.

The only way opposition to the U.S.-backed regime of Mubarak could be expressed for the past three decades was through Islamic movements, from the Muslim Brotherhood to more radical Islamic groups, some of which embrace violence. And any replacement of Mubarak (which now seems almost certain) while it may initially be dominated by moderate, secular leaders will, once elections are held and popular will is expressed, have an Islamic coloring. A new government, to maintain credibility with the Egyptian population, will have to more actively defy demands from Washington and be more openly antagonistic to Israel. What is happening in Egypt, like what happened in Tunisia, tightens the noose that will—unless Israel and Washington radically change their policies toward the Palestinians and the Muslim world—threaten to strangle the Jewish state as well as dramatically curtail American influence in the Middle East.

Read the whole article at truthdig

Chris Hedges, standing to the right of Daniel Ellsberg at the demonstration that didn't happen. Probably the most important news in recent times, because it  involved people, who were once in government, the CIA, and the media. They were here at the White House to give us a message and it was not to be found in the main stream media, not even in the NY Times, where Hedges was once the Middle East bureau chief. In 2002, Hedges was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism, and was a  foreign correspondent for fifteen years (1990–2005).

This was reported in OpEdNews

Dec 16, 2010 ... Today, 131 rebels were arrested for civil disobedience at the snow covered ... Ray McGovern, Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Margaret Flowers, Coleen Rowley.