By Patrick Martin.
Numerous press reports over the weekend add to the evidence that the Libyan rebels fighting the regime of Muammar Gaddafi are under the direction of American intelligence agencies. Despite the repeated claims by Obama administration officials that the rebels are a largely unknown quantity, it is becoming increasingly clear that key military leaders of the anti-Gaddafi campaign are well known to the US government and have longstanding relations with the CIA.
For better than two weeks there had been a virtual …

By Sukant Chandan, 26 March 2011.
The Empire admits: without Al-Jazeera, they could not have bombed Libya.
How did Al-Jazeera, once dubbed the ‘terror network’ by some and whose staff were martyred by US bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, end up becoming the media war propagandist for yet another Western war against a small state of the Global South, Libya? We will not know the full details for some time; perhaps some wikileaks will help us understand later. But this much is already certain: the station is betraying gross political …

By Max Ajl, March 26th, 2011.
MRZine has an interesting article up by Sukant Chandan on the contradictions within Al-Jazeera. Yoshie smartly pointed out a few weeks ago that the station is the tool of the Qatari ruling class, and like any ruling class, it wants something very simple: it wants to continue to rule. The Gulf Cooperation Council petro-bourgeoisie knows that opposition to the Zionist project animates Arab social mobilization. It knows that the Egyptian opposition was forged in the crucible of solidarity with the 2nd Palestinian …

By Paul Craig Roberts, April 1, 2011.
What we are observing in Libya is the rebirth of colonialism. Only this time it is not individual European governments competing for empires and resources. The new colonialism operates under the cover of “the world community,” which means NATO and those countries that cooperate with it. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was once a defense alliance against a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Today NATO provides European troops in behalf of American hegemony.
Washington pursues …

Editor’s note.
In the immediate aftermath of the 7th July 2005 bombings, forensic investigations found traces of military grade high explosives at all four bomb sites. This was widely reported in the media (see sources below). As time went on, the UK government’s (and its mouthpiece, the BBC’s) official narrative changed to ‘homemade explosives’.  Reports of high explosives being used are now very difficult to find, and have never been mentioned again.
Forensic investigations are a scientific process. The presence of military grade high explosives was confirmed by Christophe …

By Patrick Henningsen, 21st Century Wire
It was only a matter of time before gungho western audiences and pundits would have to face the harsh reality that overwhelming military power produces: 1,400 air sorties and 700 Tomahawk cruise missiles later, the civilian body bags are beginning to mount up. And the political ramifications for the acting war parties in Washington, Britain and Paris are inescapable.
According to yesterday’s report from Reuters, at least 40 civilians were killed in air strikes by Western forces on Tripoli, a …

H/T American Everyman, originally posted at The Economic Collapse.
The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company. Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants. They sure do get a lot done. What a skilled bunch of rebels – they can fight a war during the day …

By Patrick Martin.
The Libyan National Council, the Benghazi-based group that speaks for the rebel forces fighting the Gaddafi regime, has appointed a long-time CIA collaborator to head its military operations. The selection of Khalifa Hifter, a former colonel in the Libyan army, was reported by McClatchy Newspapers Thursday and the new military chief was interviewed by a correspondent for ABC News on Sunday night.
Hifter’s arrival in Benghazi was first reported by Al Jazeera on March 14, followed by a flattering portrait in the …

By Tarak Barkawi.
Phantasms from the 1990s are upon us: no-fly zones; the rhetoric of humanitarian war in Washington, Europe and the UN; guarantees that no US ground troops will be deployed; an air war which alone cannot decisively affect earthbound events.
President Obama swung for ringing tones in his statement on Libya, condemning idleness in the face of merciless tyrants who brutally assault innocents.
In the legal codes through which the international community acknowledges so untoward a happening as war, the UN resolved to protect civilians and create a cordon sanitaire around …

By Eric Blair.
It’s perplexing to see a high level of support for the unprovoked bombing of Libya on so-called “progressive” websites.
There has been an endless stream of humanitarian propaganda flowing from these sites trying to convince average liberals that the “human thing to do” is to rain down tomahawk missiles with depleted uranium to bring freedom and democracy to an oppressed people.
Huffington Post ran a piece by Ed Schultz titled Why I Support President Obama’s Decision to Invade Libya where he described his reasoning as follows:
…President Obama explained this won’t …