It was Gaddafi's Libya that offered all of Africa its first revolution in
modern times - connecting the entire continent by telephone, television,
radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as
telemedicine and distance teaching.
. . . a symbolic gesture of a mere US$300 million changed the life of
an entire continent. Gaddafi's Libya cost the West, not just depriving it of
US$500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and interest
that the initial loan would generate for years to come . . .
The US$30 billion frozen by Mr Obama belong to the Libyan Central Bank and
had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which
would add the finishing touches to the African federation - the African
Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, the establishment in 2011 of the African
Monetary Fund to be based in Yaounde with a US$42 billion capital fund and
the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria which when it starts
printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc through
which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for
the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against
Gaddafi.
The African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African
activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only US$25
billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it
swallow questionable privatisation like forcing African countries to move
from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17 December
2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western countries to
join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to African nations.
It is increasingly obvious that after Libya, the western coalition will go
after Algeria, because apart from its huge energy resources, the country has
cash reserves of around € 150 billion. This is what lures the countries that
are bombing Libya and they all have one thing in common - they are
practically bankrupt. The USA alone, has a staggering debt of $US14,000
billion, France, Great Britain and Italy each have a US$2,000 billion public
deficit compared to less than US$400 billion in public debt for 46 African
countries combined. . . .
[Contrary to western propaganda allegations, which the chronological and
geographical proximity of events in Tunisia and Egypt may have appeared to
validate, the Libyan people did not rise up against the Gaddafi regime.
Gaddafi still enjoys popular legitimacy in Tripolitania and in Fezzan,
regions where the Colonel has distributed arms to the population to resist
against the advancement of both Cyrenaica insurgents and foreign powers.
Contrary to western propaganda allegations, which some of the incendiary
declarations by the 'the brother leader' himself may even have corroborated,
Gaddafi has never bombed his civilian population. He has used military
force against putschists without worrying about the consequences for the
civilian population. This distinction makes no difference to the victims but
in international law it separates war crimes from crimes of humanity.
Finally, contrary to western propaganda allegations and despite Bernard
Henry-Levy's farcical revolutionary romanticism, the revolt of Cyrenaica was
anything but spontaneous. It was prepared by the DGSE, MI6 and the CIA. The
French put the National Transitional Council together by drawing on the
information and contacts of Massoud El- Mesmari, ex-companion and confident
of Gaddafi who defected in November 2010 and was given asylum in Paris.
With the aim of reestablishing the monarchy, the British reactivated the
network of Prince Mohamed el-Senoussi, pretender to the throne of the United
Kingdom of Libya, currently exiled in London, and distributed the red, black
and green flag brandishing a star and crescent. The United States seized
military and economic control by repatriating Libyan exiles from Washington
and placing them in key ministerial and military positions within the
National Transitional Council.--Thierry Meyssan, "Libya and the new US
strategic doctrine," voltairenet.org, April 21, 2011
[Libya's Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank
has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the
months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the US and its allies to
send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi was openly advocating the
creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In
fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that
would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money
and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and
the rest of the world only for gold dinars.
The US, the other G-8 countries, the World Bank, IMF, BIS, and multinational
corporations do not look kindly on leaders who threaten their dominance over
world currency markets or who appear to be moving away from the
international banking system that favors the corporatocracy. Saddam Hussein
had advocated policies similar to those expressed by Qaddafi shortly before
the US sent troops into Iraq.--John Perkins, "Libya:
It's Not About Oil, It's About Currency and Loans,"
informationclearinghouse.info, April 26, 2011]
[Left out of today's Libyan debate is any consideration of building on the
African Union's proposal for a ceasefire and a transition to democracy with
Gaddafi on the sidelines. Gaddafi's embattled regime agreed to those terms,
but the plan was spurned by anti-Gaddafi rebels and doesn't even rate a
mention when the "options" are listed in the Big Media.--Robert Parry, "Trying 'Shock and
Awe' in Libya," consortiumnews.info, April 27, 2011]
[This week the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said she was "deeply
concerned" by reports Gaddafi's troops were engaged in widespread rape as a
weapon of war.
. . . Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International's Libya expert, told me that
Amnesty researchers in Libya had found no evidence of such a
policy.--Patrick Cockburn, "Those Libyan
Atrocities: Do They Really Stand Up," counterpunch.org, June 20, 2011]
[The mission was originally justified as necessary to save lives, even
though there was no evidence of impending massacres anywhere, including in
Benghazi. In fact, Muammar Qaddafi's forces committed no large killings in
any of the cities that they retook, and his oft-cited florid rhetoric was
directed against guerrilla fighters, not civilians.--Doug Bandow, "U.S.
Gears Up for War Number Six," nationalinterest.org, June 20, 2011]
[Women from in and around Gadhafi's stronghold of Tripoli have been
traveling south to a training facility in Bani Walid to practice with
weapons, a common sight in a country where young girls receive military
training in schools.--David McKenzie, "Libya's Gadhafi calls for volunteers, women
answer," CNN, June 30, 2011]
[Hillary Clinton and President Sarkozy might loath to admit it, but the
desire to turn back the clock on women rights in Libya constitutes one of
the chief goals for NATO Rebels on the Transitional Council.--Susan
Lindauer, "Why Western
Woman Must Support Gaddafi," mathaba.net, July 29, 2011]
[Genocide... Gaddafi is "bombing his own people"... Save Benghazi...
African Mercenaries... Viagra-fueled Mass Rape... Responsibility to
Protect... Gaddafi-the Demon... Freedom Fighters-the Angels... Victory for
the Libyan People... Defeat for "the Left"--Maximilian C. Forte, "The Top Ten Myths in the War Against Libya,"
counterpunch.org, August 31, 2011]
[ . . . he watched French and Danish troops storm small villages late at
night beheading, maiming and killing rebels and loyalists to show them who
was in control. . . .
[. . . the proverbial dog not barking - even as Libya's secret intelligence
files have been exposed to the eyes of Western journalists - is the
absence of any incriminating evidence regarding Libya's role in the Lockerbie case. Earlier
interrogations of Libya's ex-intelligence chief Moussa Koussa by Scottish
authorities also apparently came up empty, as he was allowed to leave London
for Qatar.--Robert Parry, "On
Libya, Now They Tell Us," consortiumnews.com, September 15, 2011]
[ . . . the war dead registered from both sides in each area so far are
mostly in the hundreds, not the thousands.--Rod Nordland, "Libya Counts More Martyrs Than
Bodies," nytimes.com, September 16, 2011]
[And then there's the issue of mass graves.
Tripoli security officials passed out surgical masks and brought a forensics
expert Wednesday on a bus tour for journalists to one of the supposed
gravesites in Tripoli. The site consisted of long ditches in a normal
cemetery. The trenches were empty, with not a corpse in sight and no sign
that any had ever been there.--Hannah Allam, "Six weeks after Gadhafi's fall, Libya's rebels can't get their
story straight," mcclatchydc.com, October 6, 2011]
[A young French film-maker, Julien Teil, has filmed a remarkable interview
in which the secretary general of the Libyan League for Human Rights,
Slimane Bouchuiguir, candidly admits that he had "no proof" of the
allegations he made before the U.N. Human Rights Commission which led to
immediate expulsion of the official Libyan representative and from there to
U.N. Resolutions authorizing what turned into the NATO war of regime change.
Indeed, no proof has ever been produced of the "bombing of Libyan
civilians" denounced by Al Jazeera, the television channel financed by the
Emir of Qatar, who has emerged with a large share of Libyan oil business
from the "liberation war" in which Qatar participated.--Diana Johnstone,
"As the 'Humanitarian Warriors' Gloat... Here's the Key
Question in the Libyan War," Guardian, October 26, 2011]
[According to more than a few observers, Gadhafi's plan to quit selling
Libyan oil in U.S. dollars - demanding payment instead in gold-backed "dinars"
(a single African currency made from gold) - was the real cause. The
regime, sitting on massive amounts of gold, estimated at close to 150 tons,
was also pushing other African and Middle Eastern governments to follow
suit..--Alex Newman, "Gadhafi's Gold-money Plan
Would Have Devastated Dollar," thenewamerican.com, November 11, 2011]
[Mr. Levy went to Benghazi, camera in tow, when Gaddafi was about to squash a growing
rebellion with mass killing at a time when Libya was already parceled out to tribes and
warlords out of Tripoli's grip. He sat down the first loudmouth he crossed paths with at
the newly established Transitional Counsel, a guy named Mansour Saif al-Nasr, stood
close to him to be on frame on camera and dialed president Nicolas Sarkozy, famous for
wearing compensated shoes. A week later this traveling circus was at the Elysee Palace
on Mr. Levy's own dime and in a month, after Sarkozy had convinced David Cameron and
Barack Obama to join forces, French jets were pounding Gaddafi's troops. Three months
later Gaddafi was dead.--Jacques Hyzagi, "Why
Does Everyone Hate Bernard-Henri Levy?," observer.com, May 1, 2015]
[the great fear reported is that Libya might lead North Africa into a high degree of economic
independence with a new pan-African currency.--Brad Hoff, "Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya
Intervention," foreignpolicyjournal.com, January 6, 2016]
[Earlier this month, a select committee of British parliamentarians released a report
which condemned the U.K. government under David Cameron for its role in the 2011 NATO
intervention in Libya. The report makes plain that the principal basis on which the
intervention was predicated – that then-Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was on the verge
of committing a wholesale slaughter of the rebel stronghold Benghazi – was a lie
propagated by Western and Gulf State media outlets.--James W Carden, "How
Libyan 'Regime Change' Lies Echo in Syria," consortiumnews.com, September 25,
2016]
TRANSCRIPT: So in late 2011 there is an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock
that was produced for Hillary Clinton, and it's the chronological description of how she
was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around
40,000 deaths within Libya; jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in, leading to the European
refugee and migrant crisis.--"Julian Assange Speaks About
Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Election and the Litany of Charges Against Him,"
truthdig.com, November 5, 2016
[The French president, who took the lead among Europeans in the military campaign
against Gaddafi, was eager to compensate for diplomatic blunders in Tunisia and Egypt
and most likely angry about an arms deal with Gaddafi that went awry. Sarkozy, it now
appears, was eager to shift the narrative to put himself at the forefront of a
pro-democracy, anti-Gaddafi intervention.--Joe Penney, "WHY DID THE
U.S. AND ITS ALLIES BOMB LIBYA? CORRUPTION CASE AGAINST SARKOZY SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON
OUSTING OF GADDAFI," theintercept.com, April 28, 2018]
[Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry into deaths
that occurred there in 1996, an incident which some have referred to as the
Abu Salim prison massacre. Human Rights Watch believes that 1,270 prisoners
were killed. However, its estimate is mostly based on the account of a
single former inmate.
. . . On 25 September 2011 the National Transitional Council (NTC) announced
that a mass grave had been discovered outside the prison.
. . . However, investigators from CNN and other organizations could find no
evidence of mass graves at the supposed site - only some animal bones.--"Abu Salim
prison," wikipedia.org]