All Things
I am reprinting a blog ("Green Resistance") that comes, I believe, from Lebanon. I have been following it with pleasure. It is the first bit of information about the Libyan resistance with any substance that I have seen. But I am, of course, in no position to check the information.
"Who are these rebels in Libya? These rebels - this revolution - that is being touted quite loudly by New TV (among others). Particularly, who are the leaders amongst those rebels?
From the excellent Institute for Public Accuracy:
From Vijay Prashad, Author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, we have this examination of the rebels:
And from W. Randy Short, an independent researcher who holds a doctorate in African studies from Howard University
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All Things
Who are the Rebels in Libya?
I am reprinting a blog ("Green Resistance") that comes, I believe, from Lebanon. I have been following it with pleasure. It is the first bit of information about the Libyan resistance with any substance that I have seen. But I am, of course, in no position to check the information.
"Who are these rebels in Libya? These rebels - this revolution - that is being touted quite loudly by New TV (among others). Particularly, who are the leaders amongst those rebels?
From the excellent Institute for Public Accuracy:
From Vijay Prashad, Author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, we have this examination of the rebels:
"When one supports an intervention, one should be very careful to see whose intervention we are supporting. Is this on behalf of those young people, the workers and others? Or is it on behalf of NATO and the Libyans it may be attempting to install?
“So, for instance, when we talk about the rebel leadership in Benghazi, one should keep in mind that the two principal military leaders, one of whom was a former interior minister in the Gadafi regime, Abdel Fatah Younis. And the second, Khalifah Hifler, was a general who led Libyan troops in Chad in the 1980s and was then taken up with the Libyan National Salvation Front, went off to live in Vienna, Virginia, for 30 years, about a ten minute drive from Langley [where the CIA is headquartered], and returned to Benghazi to, in a sense, I think, hijack the rebellion on behalf of the forces of reaction. In addition to NATO members, it’s fundamentally Qatar and the UAE, the Saudis and the Gulf Cooperation Council that is behind this. That’s the principal Arab support for the Libyan intervention and is the same force putting down the uprising in Bahrain. You had the Saudi Prince Faisal Al Turki talking about the GCC becoming perhaps a NATO of the Gulf region. So part of this intervention is precisely to clamp down on the ‘Arab Spring,’ to take attention away, as well, from Bahrain and other places, rather than a part of the Arab Spring — exactly the opposite of what the U.S. administration is claiming.”
“As part of my research on Libya, I came across a WikiLeaks document that seems to have been largely overlooked with all the fuss about personalities surrounding the WikiLeaks disclosures. The document shows extreme U.S. interest in the prospect of a rebellion in the eastern part of Libya. … In terms of sources of information, possibly the most dangerous aspect of what we are currently seeing has been the role of al-Jazeera. It played a very positive role in Egypt, but when things came to Libya it did a complete 180. The sheikdom of Qatar — which funds al-Jazeera — is the only nation in the Arab League that is actually participating in the military attacks. Also, it has signed an oil deal with the Libyan rebels. So if Gadafi wins, an oil deal for Qatar goes bad.”
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Remembering 9/11 Ten years ago, we were all terribly frightened and we were mourning the unbearable losses of our own families or those of others. The question "why do they hate us?" was raised frequently but few were in a position...
-
Dark days for democracy II In a previous blog I noticed how democracy, in our day, has become government by, of and for the rich. As if that were not bad enough, no one seems to be particularly disturbed about this change. It is public knowledge...
-
Dark days for democracy The House of Representatives has passed a bill that will abolish Medicare. Instead, older Americans will receive vouchers to pay for private insurance. This will tear a huge hole in the social safety net. Under...
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p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Why are we afraid of Muslims? The American government has been visibly hesitant to support the uprisings in Arab countries. After complaining for many years about the absence of democracy in that part of the world, when...
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Corruption abroad and at home. Corruption is a central topic in discussions of Afghanistan. From the American side the matter looks very simple: the Afghanis are corrupt; we are not. There is some support for that view. In the index of 180 countries compiled...