Libya: Ten Things About Gaddafi They Don’t Want You to Know | Global Research

What do you think of when you hear the name Colonel Gaddafi? Tyrant? Dictator? Terrorist? Well, a national citizen of Libya may disagree but we want you to decide.

For 41 years until his demise in October 2011, Muammar Gaddafi did some truly amazing things for his country and repeatedly tried to unite and empower the whole of Africa.

So despite what you’ve heard on the radio, seen in the media or on the TV, Gaddafi did some powerful things that are not characteristic of a “vicious dictator” as portrayed by the western media.

Here are ten things Gaddafi did for Libya that you may not know about…

1. In Libya a home is considered a natural human right

2. Education and medical treatment were all free

3. Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project

4. It was free to start a farming business

5. A bursary was given to mothers with newborn babies

6. Electricity was free

7. Cheap petrol

8. Gaddafi raised the level of education

9. Libya had It’s own state bank

10. The gold dinar

Complete story at - Libya: Ten Things About Gaddafi They Don’t Want You to Know | Global Research

What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones? - The Intercept

Just three years after NATO’s military intervention in Libya ended and was widely heralded by its proponents as a resounding success, that country is in complete collapse. So widespread is violence and anarchy there that “hardly any Libyan can live a normal life,” Brown University’s Stephen Kinzer wrote in The Boston Globe last week. Last month, the Libyan Parliament, with no functioning army to protect it from well-armed militias, was forced to flee Tripoli and take refuge in a Greek car ferry. The New York Times reported in September that “the government of Libya said . . . that it had lost control of its ministries to a coalition of militias that had taken over the capital, Tripoli, in another milestone in the disintegration of the state.”

Sectarian strife and economic woes destroyed efforts by the U.S. and U.K. to train Libyan soldiers, causing those two nations last week to all but abandon further programs: “not a single soldier had been trained by the U.S. because the Libyan government failed to provide promised cash.” AP reports this morning that an entire city, Darna, has now pledged its allegiance to ISIS, “becoming the first city outside of Iraq and Syria to join the ‘caliphate’ announced by the extremist group.” A report issued by Amnesty International two weeks ago documented that “lawless militias and armed groups on all sides of the conflict in western Libya are carrying out rampant human rights abuses, including war crimes.” In sum, it is almost impossible to overstate the horrors daily faced by Libyans and the misery that has engulfed the country.

All of that prompts an obvious question: where did all of the humanitarians go who insisted they were driven by a deep and noble concern for the welfare of the Libyan people when they agitated for NATO intervention? Almost without exception, war advocates justified NATO’s military action in Libya on the ground that it was driven not primarily by strategic or resource objectives but by altruism. The New York Times‘ Nicholas Kristof wrote: “Libya is a reminder that sometimes it is possible to use military tools to advance humanitarian causes.” Former Obama official Anne-Marie Slaughter argued that intervention was a matter of upholding “universal values,” which itself advanced America’s strategic goals. In justifying the war to Americans (more than a week after it started), President Obama decreed: “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.”

But “turning a blind eye” to the ongoing – and now far worse – atrocities in Libya is exactly what the U.S., its war allies, and most of the humanitarian war advocates are now doing. Indeed, after the bombing stopped, war proponents maintained interest in the Libyan people just long enough to boast of their great prescience and to insist on their vindication. Slaughter took her grand victory lap in a Financial Times op-ed headlined “Why Libya sceptics were proved badly wrong,” Dismissing those who were telling her that “it is too early to tell” and that “in a year, or a decade, Libya could disintegrate into tribal conflict or Islamist insurgency, or split apart or lurch from one strongman to another,” she insisted that nothing could possibly be worse than letting Gaddafi remain in power. Thus: “Libya proves the west can make those choices wisely after all.”

Complete story at - What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones? - The Intercept

Libya’s Destruction a Warning to Egypt, Syria, & Ukraine | New Eastern Outlook

RT’s article, “90% of aircraft destroyed at Tripoli airport, Libya may seek international assistance,” reported that:

Libya is considering a deployment of international force to re-establish security amid a flare-up of violence in Tripoli which saw dozens of rockets destroy most of the civilian aircraft fleet at its international airport.

“The government is looking into the possibility of making an appeal for international forces on the ground to re-establish security and help the government impose its authority,” a government spokesman, Ahmed Lamine said in a statement.

The “democratic tomorrow” promised by NATO in 2011 has been realized – that is – in the form of predictably fraudulent elections accepted by no one, leaving a power vacuum apparently to be settled through increasingly violent armed conflict. Perhaps most ironic of all is that these conflicts are being waged between NATO’s various armed proxies it used to carry out the ground war while it bombarded Libya from the air over the majority of 2011.

NATO’s Proxies Cannibalize Each Other

In May 2014, fighting in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi has left scores dead, many more injured, and residents fleeing for their lives as what the Western media called a “renegade general,” waged war on “Islamist militants” within the city. Reuters in its article, “Families evacuate Benghazi as renegade general vows more attacks,” claimed:

The self-declared Libyan National Army led by a renegade general told civilians on Saturday to leave parts of Benghazi before it launched a fresh attack on Islamist militants, a day after dozens were killed in the worst clashes in the city for months.

The renegade general is Khalifa Haftar (sometimes spelled Hifter), who lived in the United States – outside of Langley Virginia – for years allegedly being groomed by the CIA until his eventual return to Libya in 2011 to lead ground forces in NATO’s proxy invasion. The Business Insider would report in its 2011 article, “Is General Khalifa Hifter The CIA’s Man In Libya?,” that:

Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, D.C. Badr said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.

So a former Qaddafi general who switches sides is admitted to the United States, puts down roots in Virginia outside Washington, D.C. and then somehow supports his family in a manner that mystifies a fellow who has known Hifter his whole life. Hmm.

The likelihood that Hifter was brought in to be some kind of asset is pretty high. Just as figures like Ahmed Chalabi were cultivated for a post-Saddam Iraq, Hifter may have played a similar role as American intelligence prepared for a chance in Libya.

The irony is that many of the sectarian militants Hafter was fighting in Benghazi were the same militants Muammar Qaddafi was fighting for decades as leader of Libya, and the same militants that NATO armed and abetted alongside Hafter in the overthrow of Qaddafi in 2011.

Regarding his campaign in Benghazi, Hafter claimed that it would continue until “Benghazi is purged of terrorists,” and that, “we’ve started this battle and will continue it until we have reached our goals. The street and the Libyan people are with us.” Hafter’s sentiments echo those of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, only then, the Western media denied the existence of terrorists that had been based in Benghazi for decades and portrayed Tripoli’s operations there as a “massacre” of “peaceful pro-democracy protesters.”

Complete story at - Libya’s Destruction a Warning to Egypt, Syria, & Ukraine | New Eastern Outlook

I'm confused, can anyone help me? Part 2 — RT Op-Edge

I'm confused. Jen Psaki, US State Department spokesperson, says that the Ukrainian government has 'every right' to use air strikes against its opponents in Ukraine on the grounds that it 'is defending the country'.

Yet in 2011, alleged air strikes by Libyan government forces against its opponents were used as a reason for the imposition of a 'no-fly zone' which was followed by a NATO-led military intervention against Libya. We were told that the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was 'killing his own people' and had to be stopped. The deaths of over 200 people in Libya was, according to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 'unacceptable'. But the Ukrainian government is killing its own people today, and despite more than 200 people being killed (as of 10th July the number of civilian deaths was 478, including seven children), western leaders do not say that the Ukrainian leader, Petro Poroshenko, has to be stopped, or that the bloodshed is 'unacceptable' and nor are there any calls for a 'no-fly zone' to be imposed. Why is it acceptable for the Ukrainian government to launch a military offensive, including air strikes against its own people, but unacceptable for the Libyan government in 2011 to do likewise? I'm confused. Can anyone help me?

In the lead up to the US-led military intervention against Libya in 2011, western politicians and commentators couldn't stop talking about the country. These caring 'humanitarians', it seemed, had so much concern for the plight of the Libyan people. Three years on, and Libya is in chaos, with regular fighting between rebel militia. Only on Sunday it was reported at least seven people had been killed and over 30 injured in clashes between rival militias near Tripoli's international airport. But despite Libya's troubles, western politicians and leading commentators are no longer mentioning the country, in fact it seems they've forgotten about it all together. Why were they so interested in Libya and the plight of its people in 2011, but not interested today? I'm confused. Can anyone help me?

In Britain, neocon pundits and politicians warn us repeatedly about the threat of radical Islam at home. We are told of alleged sinister plots by Islamic extremists to take control of our classrooms. Yet the same neocons who want us to be worried about the 'threat' of radical Islam, have supported the violent overthrow of the secular Syrian government by rebels dominated by Islamic jihadists who have beheaded and blown up many people. These same neocons also backed radical Islamic fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Why are the neocons so opposed to what they regard as Islamic extremism at home, but so supportive of it in certain countries abroad? If ' Islamic extremism' really is such a bad thing, then surely it is a bad thing everywhere? I'm confused. Can anyone help me?

Britons who have fought with anti-government rebels in Syria have been arrested under anti-terrorist legislation when they have returned home.

Complete story at - I'm confused, can anyone help me? Part 2 — RT Op-Edge

From Libya to Ukraine » CounterPunch

On the off-chance you have not been paying attention for the last couple of weeks, the US State Department, led by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland,  embarked on and succeeded in an overthrow of the legitimately elected government in Ukraine.

In considering the US State Department’s participation in the Ukrainian coup, it might have surprised some Americans to realize how deeply embedded the State Department was as a behind-the-scenes player, thoroughly invested in creating a  “spontaneous” rebellion.   So now, the paying-attention segment of the American public has realized that the State Department, the supposed-diplomatic arm of the US government, has been doing less diplomacy and negotiation and more organizing a team of hooligans to disrupt-and-destabilize as it gives a well-timed thumbs-up to the CIA or whoever it is who accomplishes their evil deeds.

Keeping the State Department’s Ukrainian role in mind, you might wonder  what neo-con favorite Hilary Clinton was doing during her four years as Secretary when she traveled to 112 countries, met with 1700 world leaders and racked up 956,733 miles to the kudos of the American press as the most traveled Secretary of State in history.  Well, that’s a lot of …diplomacy.   Some how I don’t think she was  brushing up on her conversational  French or appreciating Hungarian palascinta or learning new dance steps in South Africa.  Having visited an average of 425 leaders a year is some serious sightseeing …so what exactly was she talking about to1700 world leaders?

A review of Clinton’s Official State Department Travel Schedule as Secretary is worth more than a quick scrutiny especially when a series of ambiguous meetings in 2011 with the Libyan Contact Group (LCG) jumps off the page.  Perhaps the LCG were a rag tag group of well-meaning Libyans caught up in the Arab Spring phenomena – but no, they were anything but.  In a nutshell, the LCG was a US sponsored UN-like organization (but without the UN’s democratic principles) to provide the necessary political cover and create the illusion of international acceptance for the US illegal designs on Libya by fomenting a ‘rebellion’ to oust Muammar Qaddafi.  Formed on March 19 in London, the original Libya Contact Group consisted of two dozen self-appointed countries lacking the international authority to make decisions and take action regarding the sovereignty of another country. The LCG had no legal standing, acted outside the standards of international law and was not accountable to anyone.  It is politically noteworthy that the BRICS countries (Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa) all either refused to participate or only sent occasional observers.

   

From Libya to Ukraine » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names