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<font size=2>The Anti-Empire Report<br>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/02/it-doesnt-matter-to-them-ff-its-untrue-its-a-higher-truth/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/02/it-doesnt-matter-to-them-ff-its-untrue-its-a-higher-truth/</a>
<br><br>
<br>
</font><h1><font size=4><b>It Doesn’t Matter to Them If It’s Untrue. It’s
a Higher Truth.</b></font></h1><font size=2>by WILLIAM
BLUM<br><br></font>
<dl>
<dd><font size=3>“We came, we saw, he died.”<br>
<dd> US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, giggling, as she spoke of
the depraved murder of Moammar Gaddafi<br><br>
</dl>Imagine Osama bin Laden or some other Islamic leader speaking of
9-11: “We came, we saw, 3,000 died … ha- ha.”<br><br>
Clinton and her partners-in-crime in NATO can also have a good laugh at
how they deceived the world. The destruction of Libya, the reduction of a
modern welfare state to piles of rubble, to ghost towns, the murder of
thousands … this tragedy was the culmination of a series of falsehoods
spread by the Libyan rebels, the Western powers, and Qatar (through its
television station, <i>al-Jazeera</i>) from the declared imminence of a
“bloodbath” in rebel-held Benghazi if the West didn’t intervene to
stories of government helicopter-gunships and airplanes spraying gunfire
onto large numbers of civilians to tales of Viagra-induced mass rapes by
Gaddafi’s army. (This last fable was proclaimed at the United Nations by
the U.S. Ambassador, as if young soldiers needed Viagra to get it
up!)<br><br>
The <i>New York Times</i> (March 22) observed:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“… the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their
propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they
were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Qaddafi forces,
and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.”<br><br>
</dl>The Los Angeles Times (April 7) added this about the rebels’ media
operation:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“It’s not exactly fair and balanced media. In fact, as [its editor]
helpfully pointed out, there are four inviolate rules of coverage on the
two rebel radio stations, TV station and newspaper:<br>
<dd>• No pro-[Qaddafi] reportage or commentary<br>
<dd>• No mention of a civil war. (The Libyan people, east and
west, are unified in a war against a totalitarian regime.)<br>
<dd>• No discussion of tribes or tribalism. (There is only
one tribe: Libya.)<br>
<dd>• No references to Al Qaeda or Islamic extremism. (That’s
[Qaddafi's] propaganda.)”<br><br>
</dl>The Libyan government undoubtedly spouted its share of
misinformation, but it was the rebels’ trail of lies, both of omission
and commission, which was used by the UN Security Council to justify its
vote for “humanitarian” intervention; followed in Act Three by
unrelenting NATO/US bombs and drone missiles, day after day, week after
week, month after month; you can’t get much more humanitarian than that.
If the people of Libya prior to the NATO/US bombardment had been offered
a referendum on it, can it be imagined that they would have endorsed
it?<br><br>
In fact, it appears rather likely that a majority of Libyans supported
Gaddafi. How else could the government have held off the most powerful
military forces in the world for more than seven months? Before NATO and
the US laid waste to the land, Libya had the highest life expectancy,
lowest infant mortality, and highest UN Human Development Index in
Africa. During the first few months of the civil war, giant rallies were
held in support of the Libyan leader.<br><br>
For further discussion of why Libyans may have been motivated to support
Gaddafi, have a look at this video.<br><br>
If Gaddafi had been less oppressive of his political opposition over the
years and had made some gestures of accommodation to them during the Arab
Spring, the benevolent side of his regime might still be keeping him in
power, although the world has plentiful evidence making it plain that the
Western powers are not concerned about political oppression except
to use it as an excuse for intervention when they want to; indeed,
government files seized in Tripoli during the fighting show that the CIA
and British intelligence worked with the Libyan government in tracking
down dissidents, turning them over to Libya, and taking part in
interrogations.<br><br>
In any event, many of the rebels had a religious motive for opposing the
government and played dominant roles within the rebel army; previously a
number of them had fought against the United States in Afghanistan and
Iraq. The new Libyan regime promptly announced that Islamic sharia law
would be the “basic source” of legislation, and laws that contradict “the
teachings of Islam” would be nullified; there would also be a
reinstitution of polygamy; the Muslim holy book, the Quran, allows men up
to four wives.<br><br>
Thus, just as in Afghanistan in the 1980-90s, the United States has
supported Islamic militants fighting against a secular government. The
American government has imprisoned many people as “terrorists” in the
United States for a lot less.<br><br>
What began in Libya as “normal” civil war violence from both sides
repeated before and since by the governments of Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain,
and Syria without any Western military intervention at all (the US
actually continues to arm the Bahrain and Yemen regimes) was
transformed by the Western propaganda machine into a serious Gaddafi
genocide of innocent Libyans. Addressing the validity of this very key
issue is another video, “Humanitarian War in Libya: There is no
evidence“. The main feature of the film is an interview with Soliman
Bouchuiguir, Secretary-General, and one of the founders in 1989, of the
Libyan League for Human Rights, perhaps the leading Libyan dissident
group, in exile in Switzerland.<br><br>
Bouchuiguir is asked several times if he can document various charges
made against the Libyan leader. Where is the proof of the many rapes? The
many other alleged atrocities? The more than 6,000 civilians alleged
killed by Gaddafi’s planes? Again and again Bouchuiguir cites the
National Transitional Council as the source. Yes, that’s the rebels who
carried out the civil war in conjunction with the NATO/US forces. At
other times Bouchuiguir speaks of “eyewitnesses”: “little girls, boys who
were there, whose families we know personally”. After awhile, he declares
that “there is no way” to document these things. This is probably true to
some extent, but why, then, the UN Security Council resolution for a
military intervention in Libya? Why almost eight months of
bombing?<br><br>
Bouchuiguir also mentions his organization’s working with the National
Endowment for Democracy in their effort against Gaddafi, and one has to
wonder if the man has any idea that the NED was founded to be a front for
the CIA. Literally.<br><br>
Another source of charges against Gaddafi and his sons has been the
International Criminal Court. The Court’s Chief Prosecutor, Luis
Moreno-Ocampo, is shown in this film at a news conference discussing the
same question of proof of the charges. He refers to an ICC document of 77
pages which he says contains the evidence. The film displays the
document’s Table of Contents, which shows that pages 17-71 are not
available to the public; these pages, apparently the ones containing the
testimony and evidence, are marked as “redacted”. In an appendix, the ICC
report lists its news sources; these include Fox News, CNN, the CIA,
Soliman Bouchuiguir, and the Libyan League for Human Rights. Earlier, the
film had presented Bouchuiguir citing the ICC as one of his sources. The
documentation is thus a closed circle.<br><br>
Historical footnote: “Aerial bombing of civilians was pioneered by the
Italians in Libya in 1911, perfected by the British in Iraq in 1920 and
used by the French in 1925 to level whole quarters of Syrian cities. Home
demolitions, collective punishment, summary execution, detention without
trial, routine torture these were the weapons of Europe’s takeover” in
the Mideast.<br><br>
The worldwide eternal belief that American foreign policy has a good side
that can be appealed to <br><br>
On April 6, 2011 Moammar Gaddafi wrote a letter to President Obama, in
which he said: “We have been hurt more morally than physically because of
what had happened against us in both deeds and words by you. Despite all
this you will always remain our son whatever happened. … Our dear son,
Excellency, Baraka Hussein Abu Oubama, your intervention in the name of
the U.S.A. is a must, so that Nato would withdraw finally from the Libyan
affair.”7<br><br>
Before the American invasion in March 2003, Iraq tried to negotiate a
peace deal with the United States. Iraqi officials, including the chief
of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, wanted Washington to know that Iraq no
longer had weapons of mass destruction and offered to allow American
troops and experts to conduct a search; they also offered full support
for any US plan in the Arab-Israeli peace process, and to hand over a man
accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. If
this is about oil, they added, they would also talk about US oil
concessions…. Then came shock and awe!<br><br>
In 2002, before the coup in Venezuela that briefly ousted Hugo Chávez,
some of the plotters went to Washington to get a green light from the
Bush administration. Chávez learned of this visit and was so distressed
by it that he sent officials from his government to plead his own case in
Washington. The success of this endeavor can be judged by the fact that
the coup took place shortly thereafter.<br><br>
In 1994, it was reported that the leader of the Zapatista rebels in
Mexico, Subcommander Marcos, said that “he expects the United States to
support the Zapatistas once US intelligence agencies are convinced the
movement is not influenced by Cubans or Russians.” “Finally,” Marcos
said, “they are going to conclude that this is a Mexican problem, with
just and true causes.” Yet for many years, the United States provided the
Mexican military with all the training and tools needed to crush the
Zapatistas.<br><br>
The Guatemalan foreign minister in 1954, Cheddi Jagan of British Guiana
in 1961, and Maurice Bishop of Grenada in 1983 all made their appeals to
Washington to be left in peace. The governments of all three countries
were overthrown by the United States.<br><br>
In 1945 and 1946, Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, a genuine admirer of
America and the Declaration of Independence, wrote at least eight letters
to President Harry Truman and the State Department asking for America’s
help in winning Vietnamese independence from the French. He wrote that
world peace was being endangered by French efforts to reconquer Indochina
and he requested that “the four powers” (US, USSR, China, and Great
Britain) intervene in order to mediate a fair settlement and bring the
Indochinese issue before the United Nations. Ho Chi Minh received no
reply. He was, after all, some sort of communist.<br><br>
America’s presstitutes<br><br>
Imagine that the vicious police attack of October 25 on the Occupy
Oakland encampment had taken place in Iran or Cuba or Venezuela or in any
other ODE (Officially Designated Enemy) … Page One Righteous Indignation
with Shocking Photos. But here’s the Washington Post the next day: A
three-inch story on page three with a headline: “Protesters wearing out
their welcome nationwide”; no mention of the Iraqi veteran left
unconscious from a police projectile making contact with his head; as to
photos: just one an Oakland police officer petting a cat that was left
behind by the protesters.<br><br>
And here’s TV comedian Jay Leno the same night as the police attack in
Oakland: “They say Moammar Gaddafi may have been one of the richest men
in the world … 200 billion dollars. With all of the billions he had, he
spent very little on education or health care for his country. So I guess
he was a Republican.”<br><br>
The object of Leno’s humor was of course the Republicans, but it served
the cause of further demonizing Gaddafi and thus adding to the
“justification” of America’s murderous attack on Libya. If I had been one
of Leno’s guests sitting there, I would have turned to the audience and
said: “Listen people, under Gaddafi health care and education were
completely free. Wouldn’t you like to have that here?”<br><br>
I think that enough people in the audience would have applauded or
shouted to force Leno to back off a bit from his indoctrinated, mindless
remark.<br><br>
And just for the record, the 200 billion dollars is not money found in
Gaddafi’s personal bank accounts anywhere in the world, but money
belonging to the Libyan state. But why quibble? There’s no business like
show business.<br><br>
The Iraqi Lullabye<br><br>
On February 17, 2003, a month before the US bombing of Iraq began, I
posted to the Internet an essay entitled “What Do the Imperial Mafia
Really Want?” concerning the expected war. Included in this were the
words of Michael Ledeen, former Reagan official, then at the American
Enterprise Institute, which was one of the leading drum-beaters for
attacking Iraq:<br><br>
If we just let our own vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it
entirely, and we don’t try to be clever and piece together clever
diplomatic solutions to this thing, but just wage a total war against
these tyrants, I think we will do very well, and our children will sing
great songs about us years from now.<br><br>
After a year of the tragic farce that was the American intervention in
Iraq I could not resist. I sent Mr. Ledeen an email reminding him of his
words and saying simply: “I’d like to ask you what songs your children
are singing these days.”<br><br>
I received no reply.<br><br>
Has there ever been an empire that didn’t tell itself and the world that
it was unlike all other empires, that its mission was not to plunder and
control but to enlighten and liberate?<br><br>
WILLIAM BLUM is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II, Rogue State: a guide to the World’s
Only Super Power. and West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir.
He can be reached at:
<a href="mailto:BBlum6@aol.com">BBlum6@aol.com</a><br><br>
<br><br>
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