Al Qaeda Controlling Eastern Libya

Libya: Comment: On the 26th, Milan's Corriere della Sera published an article by an Italian journalist describing conditions in Libya, with special focus on eastern Libya, the region around Benghazi. Excerpts follow.

He wrote that Westerners are leaving eastern Libya. Businessmen, diplomats, and representatives of humanitarian organizations are leaving, along with the technicians who work in the oil industry.

"Rome considers that the Libyan authorities are currently 'incapable of ensuring effective control over the territory' against the Islamic fundamentalist threat. Thus 'travel in eastern, central, and southern Libya is absolutely discouraged unless motivated by stringent professional requirements which cannot opportunely be postponed.'"

Benghazi "is riven by feuding. The security forces are nowhere to be seen. The central government does not exist. The secessionist movement is growing. Garbage is rotting in the streets, and crime and the kidnapping industry are spreading...."

"Darnah, the coastal city nestling at the foot of the 'green mountains' …is now seen as an independent al-Qa'ida republic...."

" 'Al-Qa'ida's road blocks now control the roads in Darnah. They may comprise over 1,000 armed men. Their militia groups are spreading to the villages and they are occupying other cities such as Bayda in an attempt to reach Benghazi,' Libyan intelligence sources told us. The next deadline is…

Read more.

Source: Town Hall

Neoconservative Fallacies in Aggressive Foreign Policy (part 2)

By Zach Foster, resident writer of A Blogging Spot

Al Qaeda certainly needed to be punished for the horrific 9/11 terror attacks and much of the world agreed, but having hundreds of military bases in over a hundred countries didn’t stop the attacks from occurring.  Furthermore, invading Iraq plus getting involved in Libya, Syria, and central Africa isn’t doing much for national security. Both parties in government like spending more money than they take in and both started or got our country involved in wars we didn’t need to fight. Anyone is free to ask any Iraq or Afghan war veteran if he or she really think the Iraqis or Afghans will figure out and embrace democracy and human rights anytime soon, and the response will most likely be “No.”

Many neoconservatives attempt to justify the Iraq and Afghan wars (as well as the African sideshows) by comparing them to the First Barbary War or to World War II.  Their logic is faulty at best as the nature of the centuries-past conflict differs greatly.  The First Barbary War (1801-1805) was initiated after semi-independent sultans of the Ottoman Empire’s buffer states had been authorizing pirates to kidnap…

(Read more)

Source: A Blogging Spot

PSL: When justifying imperialist intervention "goes wrong"

Cruise-missile socialists

By Mazda Majidi

On July 1, an article titled "Libya and Syria: When Anti-Imperialism Goes Wrong" was published on the North Star website, signed by "Pham Binh of Occupy Wall Street, Class War Camp." The article argues that imperialist interventions in Libya and Syria are justified because they are demanded by forces the author calls revolutionary. While claiming to cut against the grain, he formulates what is a common position among liberals, progressives and even some self-proclaimed socialists and anti-imperialists. As such it is important to respond.

When imperialist countries intervene in the affairs of oppressed countries, the justifications do not only emanate from the U.S. government and the corporate media. In each instance, various forces and individuals with liberal and progressive credentials succumb to the imperialist propaganda campaign and put forth pro-intervention arguments, albeit using progressive-sounding analyses and using liberal/left language.

Even if “progressive” arguments for intervention originate far away from the halls of power, and receive no wide audience among the ruling class, they nonetheless play an important role for the imperialist war drives. (Read more)

Source: PSL

Rand Paul on Romney and Unconstitutional Wars

Writes Senator Rand Paul at National Review:

Much has been speculated and written since my endorsement of Mitt Romney for president. Many in the liberty movement and my longtime supporters wondered if, as a result of endorsing someone for office, I would stand up to them when they went astray.

The question to me is as strange as the answer is simple: Yes, strongly. Every time.

I have always done what I believe and I have never been blinded by party. In my time in the United States Senate, I have opposed the USA Patriot Act, voted against the NDAA over indefinite detention, fought to end mandatory minimum drug sentences, and voted against my party’s official budget because it didn’t cut enough spending.

I introduced a resolution against an unconstitutional war in Libya, and tried to repeal the authorization for the unconstitutional war before that in Iraq.

I don’t believe any fair look at my record will show blind partisanship — or partisanship of any kind. I have worked with Senate Democrats on civil liberties, and the House Black Caucus on the drug war. I have fought alongside the ACLU on civil liberties, and at times, I have fought all by myself on federalism issues.

I endorsed Governor Romney for many reasons, not the least of which is that we simply cannot afford four more years of President Obama. Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, an out-of-control EPA and NLRB, and trillion-dollar deficits are combining to strangle our economy. I am afraid if that chokehold is not released quickly, our country may quickly follow Europe into destruction. Anyone who doesn’t believe there is a difference between the two candidates on economic issues is simply not looking or not being honest with their assessments.

Where I don’t know if there is as much of a difference as I would like is foreign policy.

Let’s first be clear: President Obama was elected on a platform of ending wars, yet he has opposed every effort made by me and others in the Senate to do that. He opposed my resolution to end the Iraq War. He has refused my urgings to end the war in Afghanistan more quickly. He started another war in Libya, and this time went further into unconstitutional territory than previous presidents by not even seeking Congressional approval whatsoever.

I opposed him when he did that. Anyone who believes President Obama is less aggressive internationally than his predecessors is mistaken.

I do not yet know if I will find a Romney presidency more acceptable on foreign policy. But I do know that I must oppose the most recent statements made by Mitt Romney in which he says he, as president, could take us to war unilaterally with Iran, without any approval from Congress. His exact words were:

I can assure you if I’m president, the Iranians will have no question but that I will be willing to take military action if necessary to prevent them from becoming a nuclear threat to the world. I don’t believe at this stage, therefore, if I’m president that we need to have a war powers approval or special authorization for military force. The president has that capacity now.

This is a misreading of the role of the president and Congress in declaring war.

The Constitution clearly states that it is Congress that has the power to declare war, not the president… 

Even if the president believes he has such authority, the War Powers Act goes on to require the president to seek congressional approval within 60 days of conflict.

No president is above the law or above the Constitution…

I will hold accountable and oppose any actions from any president, Republican or Democrat, if he declares war without congressional consent.

Read the entire column

Source: Paulitical Ticker with Jack Hunter

Reader submission: War or Peace?

By Meagan Sharp

Is Iran in 2012 another Iraq like 2003?

First of all, the biggest danger for our country right now is that a president is going to overreact and we are going to end up bombing Iran. If we can live through the cold war, which we did, with 30,000 missiles pointed at us then we should sit back and think and not assume that we are going to be attacked! Look what happened with Libya! ISRAEL has 300 nuclear weapons so why are we making them out to be some poor defenseless nation? We have 45 bases in IRAN (not including submarines)! IRAN can’t even produce enough gasoline for themselves and we're worried about them obtaining ONE weapon? Politicians are building this war up just like they did Iraq. We do not need to get involved in another war people!

As if that crisis wasn’t bad enough, President Obama has made it very clear that he will not only ignore the US Constitution, but will refuse to listen to congress when they don't let him have his way. Obama ignores the US Constitution and Congress when it suits his purposes. He issues edicts without regard to the US Constitution and signs into law unconstitutional acts. He is blatantly inconsistent, and he continues to get your support???

Oh, and for those of you who think he’s saving the economy and lowering unemployment: Our national debt has actually increased since Bush was in office, to be specific, the Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency and has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office. As for unemployment, North Carolina has lost nearly 50,000 jobs since President Obama took office and the unemployment rate is 9.9 percent. In Charlotte, unemployment is even higher, 10 percent. In total, 450,000 North Carolinians are unemployed, up 13 percent since Obama took office and these are just TWO examples.

HOWEVER, just because I am completely against Obama being reelected I want to make it clear that I am just as adamant about Romney NOT being elected either. What Republicans don’t seem to understand is that if Ron Paul is NOT on the ballot, none of his supporters are going to vote for Romney. Ron Paul is the only politician that has a chance of beating Obama. If you vote for Romney and don’t vote for Ron Paul then you can blame yourselves for Obama’s reelection and be prepared for a socialist society.

SO PLEASE, vote for peace, not war; for restraint, not excess; and for civil liberties, not authoritarianism.

RON PAUL 2012.

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What It Means to Be Pro-Life (Part 1)

By Zach Foster

 

This article was originally published by Young Americans for Liberty.

 

Many Americans with some political consciousness tend to group themselves in one or two political categories: the left and the right, the former are usually associated with the Democrat Party and the latter with the Republican Party.  Whenever people assign themselves to one of these two positions, they usually subscribe to the majority of that position’s pre-set policies and beliefs.

 

Both the left and the right have their own views on the sanctity of life, yet their contradictory views -- the left being against war and the death penalty but all for the choice of abortion and the right being against abortion but for the death penalty and war -- become a paradox.  Wherever they stand on the issue of life, both the left and the right are in full favor of death to some extent, and any stance they take on preserving life -- whether in the fetal stage or in the electric chair -- is based on fallacious logic and dishonest euphemisms.  Both sides are willing to kill in order to bring about their ideal conditions in society.

 

Part I: How the Left Justifies Killing

 

Leftists love to attack war but most of them are hypocrites for doing so, since they also often favor war but simply for different reasons than the right.  Socialists favor labor violence and outright civil wars which they refer to as “wars of liberation.”  If they subscribe to Lenin’s teachings, violence and outright terror in the name of proletarian revolution are justified (see The Black Book of Communism, Chapter 4: The Red Terror).   More moderate leftists, from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama, campaign on peace but instead lead the country into wars for various political and economic purposes.  With Wilson it was the First World War  and with Obama it was continuation of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as intervention in the Libyan Civil War as well as those in Somalia, South Sudan, and Central Africa.   Both social democrats enjoyed wide support from their allegedly pacific Democrat Party.

 

Leftists also tend to write off abortion as a matter of civil rights for women.  Let us beg to differ!  They scream and cry over American… (Read the rest of the article)

Flip-Flopping Newt Gingrich

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Newt Gingrich’s chronic flip-flopping almost makes the ever-malleable Mitt Romney look consistent. Here’s a compilation from MSNBC and please note, this is just the tip of the iceberg:

 

Health-Insurance Mandate:

 

Flip: “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it.” — June 2007

 

Flop: “I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional.” — May 16, 2011

 

Cap-and-Trade:

 

Flip: “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.” — February 2, 2007

 

Flop: “A carbon cap and trade system … would lead to corruption, political favoritism, and would have a huge impact on the economy.” — April 21, 2008

 

Climate Change:

 

Flip: “I think is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon-loading of the atmosphere.” — April 10, 2007

 

Flop: “I actually don’t know whether global warming is occurring.” — November 8, 2011

 

Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan:

 

Flip: “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering… [Paul Ryan's Medicare proposal] is too big a jump.” — May 15, 2011

 

Flop: “I made a mistake…” — May 17, 2011

 

Libya:

 

Flip: “Exercise a no-fly zone this evening … Provide help to the rebels to replace [Qaddafi] … All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.” — March 7, 2011

 

Flop: “I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi … I would not have used American and European forces.” — March 23, 2011

 

Criminal Court Trials for Suspected Terrorists:

 

Flip: “Well, I think if [members of the Bush administration] believe they have enough evidence to convict [Jose Padilla], going through the process of convicting him and holding him, I suspect, may be for the rest of his life without parole would not be — would hardly be seen as a loss. I think this administration is still wrestling with what are the real ground rules for dealing with people who are clearly outside of normal warfare? They’re not wearing a uniform. They’re not part of an army. They are openly threatening to kill thousands or even millions of people.” — November 22, 2005

 

Flop: “Why would you take a Nigerian national who just tried to blow up a plane over Detroit … Why would you take that person, put them in the American criminal justice system, give them an attorney, read them their Miranda rights?” — January 4, 2010

Wounded Libyan Fighters To Receive U.S. Medical Care

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta

October 27, 2011

 

After months of struggle and sacrifice, the Libyan people have liberated their country with the support of the United States and the international community. The violent dictator and his regime have collapsed. But Libya’s new freedom has come at a price in human life and suffering. Just as the United States and the international community stood with the Libyan people during the revolution, we continue to work with Libya to address urgent humanitarian needs.

 

Saturday, in response to a request by the Transitional National Council, the United States is transporting 24 seriously wounded fighters to Spaulding Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. An additional six critical cases will be transferred to Germany for immediate care. All of these patients were injured as a result of recent fighting and suffer from conditions that cannot currently be treated in Libya.

The United States offers this humanitarian gesture of emergency medical evacuation assistance as a token of our support for the democratic aspirations of the Libyan people and our hope for a continued strong partnership as they build a new Libya.

Libya for the Libyans: Stop the intervention!

After the killing of former Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi, some in  the corporate controlled media are extolling the overall operation as  the right way for the United States to project force overseas.

 

We beg to differ.

 

We find the whole episode, starting  with the beginning of NATO intervention in March, to be very troubling.  Rather than a model to be emulated, the operation sets very bad  precedents.

The United Nations was crudely superseded by the North Atlantic  Treaty Organization (NATO), whose leaders took a mandate to prevent a  possible massacre of civilians and transformed it into a gung ho mission  of "regime change".  NATO is now posing as an international  organization. It is nothing of the kind; it is a military alliance in  which there is no representation of African, Latin American or, with the  exception of Turkey, Asian nations. The key role in the NATO  intervention in Libya is being played by the former colonial powers  (France and the UK, and, to a lesser extent, Libya's former colonial  master, Italy as well as the United States) who have a vested interest  in trade policy with the African continent, and control of that  continent's natural resources. Window dressing was provided by some of  the Arab states, which themselves are hardly paragons of democracy and  good government.

Efforts by many nations and groupings, including the African Union,  the BRICS countries and the ALBA grouping, to obtain a cease fire and  get negotiations for a peaceful solution underway were cynically brushed  aside. This led to a far bloodier conflict than might otherwise have  been the case.

 

Although Gadaffi was correctly denounced for his repressive  policies, little or nothing was said or done by the NATO powers about  the well-documented persecution and reprisals against Black Libyans and  immigrants from other African countries residing in Libya. Unless some  action is taken, these and other reprisals are likely to continue.

 

There is a real danger that the NATO powers, and especially the  former colonial powers, will use the elimination of Gadaffi to increase  their control of the economies and trade of the African states, in the  process imposing even harsher neo-liberal policies of "free" trade,  privatization and austerity on some of the poorest countries in the  world.

 

The Communist Party of the USA calls for a halt to this kind of  interventionist policy. We call for the strengthening of real  international organizations in which all nations and regions of the  world have a vote. Rather than NATO military intervention, conflicts  within and between nations in Africa and everywhere else should be  settled peacefully by negotiations.  There is, in fact, no reason for  the existence of NATO, let alone its transformation into a worldwide  imperialist intervention force that has ranged as far afield as the  Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya.

 

The danger now is that the NATO powers, and international monopoly  capital, take advantage of the Libya situation to maximize their profits  from Libyan oil, natural gas and water resources, as well as  strengthening their control over the economies of the impoverished  African countries which depended on Libyan aid to survive.  The  Communist Party of the USA pledges to oppose all policies which plunge  Libya and its African neighbors into deeper poverty and dependency.

 

Libya for the Libyans!  Africa for the Africans!

 

International Department

Communist Party

Source: E-letter from CPUSA. Photo by Amar Abd Rabbo.