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NATO’s Ugly Face
by Stephen Lendman
View it yourself!
Images don’t lie, except NATO’s fake ones produced in Doha, Qatar and perhaps elsewhere on Hollywood sound stages.
For months, NATO marauders and rebel killers gang raped Libya – murdering, destroying, ravaging on the pretense of protecting.
On August 22, Obama, a duplicitous unindicted war criminal, described the above images as “basic and joyful longing for human freedom.”
On August 25, Secretary of State Clinton, another unindicted war criminal, said “(t)he events in Libya this week have heartened the world.”
Let them and their conspiratorial allies go to Tripoli, Brega, Misrata and other ravaged Libyan cities and see for themselves.
Let them view streets filled with mangled corpses, blood, agony on the face of the living, destruction everywhere in sight, and human misery beyond what scales can measure.
Let them see firsthand the fruits of their victory. Let them taste, smell, and witness Tripoli’s growing humanitarian disaster.
On August 27, Russia Today reported “widespread shortages of fuel, water and electricity, and humanitarian aid supplies are yet to reach the country. The situation on the ground is very close to a catastrophe.”
“Tripoli is now facing severe shortages of running water, electricity, gasoline and medicine….The city’s municipal services are paralyzed.”
Destruction, garbage and maggot-infested corpses fill streets. Communicable and other disease outbreaks may follow, including from contaminated water, soil, and air.
Let them imagine hidden rage and the popular will to resist this and much more.
Let them consider what may, in fact, unfold ahead – continued resistance, struggle, and commitment for real freedom, not serfdom under NATO pillagers.
Not banker occupation. Not Big Oil plundering their resources. Not Washington, London and Paris deciding what’s “best” for Libya.
Not settling for servitude under monstrous rulers there to destroy their life force, spirit, and will to say this won’t stand!
Not surrendering on their knees. Choosing death on their feet instead, committed to struggle for real liberation. Willing to pay the price because the alternative is too grim to accept, and won’t be.
Through at least August 27, independent journalists remained trapped, virtual prisoners, inside Tripoli’s Corinthia Hotel, unable to provide real news and commentaries on this and other vital events in Tripoli and other areas.
Their reports are sorely missed. Hopefully efforts continue to free them safely to return home.
On August 26, the International Action Center headlined, “LIBYA – Resistance to US/NATO Conquest Continues,” saying:
Despite NATO’s full force an
d the worst kind of insurgent banditry, “heroic resistance to imperialist conquests” continues.
“All the corporate media (deception) claiming mass surrender,” Gaddafi fleeing, his sons arrested, and other disinformation “turned out to be nothing but lies and psychological warfare.”
As in Iraq and Afghanistan, “arrogant(ly) declar(ing) victory and ‘mission accomplished’ ” won’t end popular struggles continuing in “many forms.”
Libyans “heroically withstood not only (months of bombing), but also….racist corporate media propaganda (portraying America and) NATO’s military machine….as great white liberators.”
Now they face pillaging on a grand scale. Responsibility to protect, in fact, disguises an opportunity to plunder, once killing and destruction end or at least subside.
Disaster capitalism is planned for Libya. Naomi Klein explained it in “The Shock Doctrine,” exposing the myth of free market democracy. She revealed how neoliberal pillaging exploits security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, natural disasters, and wars.
Ahead expect social services ended, public ones privatized, and freedom on the chopping block to be lost. Planned is a new Western version of Libya, replacing a socially responsible one under Gaddafi.
It was a key reason why he was targeted for removal so corporate predators could swoop in to pick apart Libya’s corpse.
As a result, spoils will be divvied up among them. Then on to the next target, and ones after that until all Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia are colonized, occupied by one means or other, and plundered.
In fact, parasitic pillaging is Washington’s idea of free market triumphalism, including privatizing public enterprises, regulatory freedom, tax cuts for the rich, impoverishing the rest, exploiting them, corporate handouts, and militarized control for enforcement.
It supports the Bilderberg notion of a global classless society – a New World Order with rulers and serfs. No middle class, no unions, no democracy, no equity or justice, just empowered oligarchs, freed to do as they please under a universal legal system benefitting them.
It’s right out of Milton Friedman’s play book, articulated in his 1962 book, “Capitalism and Freedom,” saying:
“only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When a crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around…our basic function (is) to develop alternatives to existing policies (and be ready to roll them out when the) impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
Friedman believed that government’s sole function is “to protect our freedom from (outside) enemies (and) our fellow-citizens. (It’s to) preserve law and order (as well as) enforce private contracts, (safeguard private property and) foster competitive markets.”
Everything else in public hands is socialism, an ideology he called blasphemous. He said markets work best unfettered of rules, regulations, onerous taxes, trade barriers, “entrenched interests,” human interference, and the best government is practically none.
In other words, anything government does business does better so let it. Ideas about democracy, social justice, and a caring society, he believed were verboten because they interfere with free-wheeling capitalism.
He said public wealth should be in private hands, profit accumulation unrestrained, corporate taxes abolished, and social services curtailed or ended. He believed “economic freedom is an end to itself (and) an indispensable means toward (achieving) political freedom.”
Applied to Libya, neither one is possible unless popular resistance prevents or regains what Washington and its allies plan to take, leaving nothing but servitude for Libyans.
That harsh reality has to be resisted, no matter what it takes or for how long. Hopefully, Libyans are up to the task. Given their rage against planned NATO occupation and plunder, very likely quitting is something they don’t contemplate.
Perhaps it’s the wild card Washington doesn’t expect. A previous article headlined, It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over. Another was titled, Libya: Keep the Freedom Flame Alive.
Remember John Lennon’s lyrics imagining “Nothing to kill or die for….Living life in peace, and “hop(ing) someday….the world will live as one.”
So why not if enough in it try.
Accomplishing tough things take a while. The impossible takes a little longer.
Step one is ending Friedman’s version of the best of all possible worlds, NATO, and corporate occupation of Washington.
Achieving that would be a major step toward freeing Libyans and perhaps finishing the job elsewhere for the kind of world everyone deserves.
It’s there for the taking with enough commitment.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. He is also the author of “How Wall Street Fleeces America“
The Progressive News Hour
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Guest: Gilad Atzmon
Atzmon is an Israeli-born musician/writer/activist critic of Israeli repression against Palestinians and its Arab citizens. He’s also the author of “The Wandering Who?” His new book and Middle East/North African issues will be discussed. Middle East issues will be discussed.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=135495
Posted by Stephen Lendman on Aug 31 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Civil Liberties and Freedom, Corruption, Government, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Why does this honest version of what is happening in Libya arrive after all the posturing by Gordon Duff?
This is an excellent post, giving us the truth about the “rebels” in Libya. NATO had no right to go into Libya an I will always stand by that. Thank you for letting us see the truth on VT.
It is unfortunate but in a way good that only after so much spoon bending trickery to deflect attention from a pro-conquest party promotion, can we appreciate a simple common sense approach to such a calamitous human tragedy.
Our government propagandists are accustomed to throwing the fast ball by us. Just talk loud, talk fast, and you can give the appearance of getting folks the “real stuff”. Well, guess again. If our people were computer savvy, sought the truth and not pap, we’d provide vastly more resistance to the omnipresent gubbermint steam roller. Even the dope Dubya put many over on us with double talk that was simply never questioned. The Bush family going back to Prescott are clearly some of the more sinister America haters that we’ve seen here. Notice how money and greed and hatred can propel a family to the most diabolical of crimes against a country and its citizens. Ol’ country boy Dubya and in truth, this guy hates you and everything about you, just like the schmuck that occupies the toilet in the White House. Obama the genius, the Law editor that never wrote a paper for this august and hallowed drivelesque farce representing faux law like no other. Americans don’t really care to bend their brains beyond their favorite garbage TV shows and filthy mouthed entertainers.
Steve Lendman does a great job at putting together the clear truth that describes America and Americans during the summer of our discontent. The probing goes on and on and our enemies now realize we are a nation of stupidos and smart assed professors who litter their lawns with Obama signs so they can, somehow, feel a kindred association with the “top of the class legal eagle” that reminds them of themselves, geniuses that have deep knowledge in everything but life studies, curiously the major of most college athletes. To casually dismiss a candidate who seeks to open up the dark cobwebs of the Fed as some sort of quack is beyond humor, more like morbid insanity. Hell, Joe Average thinks the Fed means you have eaten enough for satiety. What is wrong with America is Americans, less so the turnips who inhabit the Congress and WH. Then again, we can only vote for who is behind either Door 1 or Door 2, can’t we? The nefarious two party system guarantees that we can only vote for one or the other….both of which are bought and paid for, thank you, sir. I have met the enemy and he is American.