Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Libya crisis: Benghazi

[American Patriot]

Not all that impressive to me. Allah is just a name for God.

They need to get over it.

[American Patriot]

Again, they need to get over it. Or suffer the consequences.

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Obama administration prepares for possibility of new post-revolt Islamist regimes

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 4, 2011; A01

The Obama administration is preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and the Middle East, acknowledging that the popular revolutions there will bring a more religious cast to the region's politics.

The administration is already taking steps to distinguish between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between such movements as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Qaeda that will guide the U.S. approach to the region.

"We shouldn't be afraid of Islam in the politics of these countries," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal policy deliberations. "It's the behavior of political parties and governments that we will judge them on, not their relationship with Islam."

Islamist governments span a range of ideologies and ambitions, from the primitive brutality of the Taliban in Afghanistan to Turkey's Justice and Development Party, a movement with Islamist roots that heads a largely secular political system.

None of the revolutions over the past several weeks has been overtly Islamist, but there are signs that the uprisings could give way to more religious forces. An influential Yemeni cleric called this week for the U.S.-backed administration of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to be replaced with Islamist rule, and in Egypt, an Islamist theoretician has a leading role in drafting constitutional changes after President Hosni Mubarak's fall from power last month.

A number of other Islamist parties are deciding now how big a role to play in protests or post-revolution reforms.

Since taking office, President Obama has argued for a "new beginning" with Islam, suggesting that Islamic belief and democratic politics are not incompatible. But in doing so, he has alarmed some foreign-policy pragmatists and allies such as Israel, who fear that governments based on religious law will inevitably undercut democratic reforms and other Western values.

Some within the U.S. intelligence community, foreign diplomatic circles and the Republican Party say Obama's readiness to accept Islamist movements, even ones that meet certain conditions, fails to take into consideration the methodical approach many such parties adopt toward gradually transforming secular nations into Islamic states at odds with U.S. policy goals.

Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories have prospered in democratic elections and exert huge influence. Neither party, each with an armed wing, supports Israel's right to exist, nor have they renounced violence as a political tool. And while many in the region point to Turkey as a model mixture of Islam and democracy, the ruling Islamist party is restrained by the country's highly secular army and court system, a pair of strong institutional checks that countries such as Egypt and Tunisia lack.

Israel's concerns
"The actual word and definition of Islamism does not in and of itself pose a threat," said Jonathan Peled, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, citing Israel's relationship with the Turkish government, among others. But Peled said Israel fears that "anti-democratic extremist forces could take advantage of a democratic system," as, he said, Hamas did with its 2006 victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections. Israel allowed Hamas to participate only under pressure from the George W. Bush administration as part of its stated commitment to promote Arab democracy.

"We obviously have concerns that are different than the administration's," Peled said. "We live in the neighborhood, obviously, and so we experience the results more closely."

The choice between stability and democracy has been a constant tension in U.S. foreign policy, and in few places has it been more pronounced than in the Middle East.

Many of the fallen or imperiled autocrats in the region were supported by successive U.S. governments, either as Cold War foils to the Soviet Union or as bulwarks against Islamist extremism before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In his June 2009 address at Cairo University, Obama acknowledged the controversy that the Bush administration's democracy promotion stirred in the region.

"That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people," he said, adding that "each nation gives life to the principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people."
In the Arab Middle East, those traditions include Islam, although Obama did not directly address the religion's role in democratic politics. He said the United States "will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people."

U.S. political challenge
The goal of Islamist movements after taking power is at the root of concern expressed by Republican lawmakers and others in Washington.

Paul Pillar, a longtime CIA analyst who now teaches at Georgetown University, said, "Most of the people in the intelligence community would see things on this topic very similarly to the president - that is, political Islam as a very diverse series of ideologies, all of which use a similar vocabulary, but all quite different."

"The main challenge President Obama will face is a political challenge from across the aisle, and one reinforced by Israel," said Pillar, whose portfolio included the Middle East.

As the Arab revolutions unfold, the White House is studying various Islamist movements, identifying ideological differences for clues to how they might govern in the short and long term.

The White House's internal assessment, dated Feb. 16, looked at the Muslim Brotherhood's and al-Qaeda's views on global jihad, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States, Islam in politics, democracy and nationalism, among others.

The report draws sharp distinctions between the ambitions of the two groups, suggesting that the Brotherhood's mix of Islam and nationalism make it a far different organization than al-Qaeda, which sees national boundaries as obstacles to restoring the Islamic caliphate.

The study also concludes that the Brotherhood criticizes the United States largely for what it perceives as America's hypocritical stance toward democracy - promoting it rhetorically but supporting leaders such as Mubarak.

"If our policy can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, we won't be able to adapt to this change," the senior administration official said. "We're also not going to allow ourselves to be driven by fear."

After Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the United States and Israel led an international boycott of the government. But Obama administration officials, reviewing that history with an eye toward the current revolutions, say the reason for the U.S. boycott was not Hamas's Islamic character but its refusal to agree to conditions such as recognizing Israel.

In a speech Monday in Geneva, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to draw on that lesson, implicitly inviting Islamist parties to participate in the region's future elections with conditions. "Political participation," Clinton said, "must be open to all people across the spectrum who reject violence, uphold equality and agree to play by the rules of democracy."

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Not a fan of this venue but it's interesting out of Wesley Clark's own mouth 4 years ago he states some of what's happening now.

Strange how the Left's now on board with this activity.

Interview of Amy Goodman on March 2, 2007 - Middle East Agenda



Interview of Amy Goodman on March 2, 2007 - Middle East Agenda

In an interview with Amy Goodman on March 2, 2007, U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.), explains that the Bush Administration planned to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Lybia, Somalia, Sudan, Iran.

[American Patriot]

Who says they are On Board?

Seems like they haven't really done a damned thing to help or hinder either way if you think about it.

Libya was a reluctant attempt on the part of the President to be "the good guy".

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Who says they are On Board?

Seems like they haven't really done a damned thing to help or hinder either way if you think about it.

Libya was a reluctant attempt on the part of the President to be "the good guy".

On board may have been to strong of a term.

The majority of the Leftist pundits are still out defending the actions of this Administration.

What I don't see in the MSM...yet; is the foaming at the mouth rabid Left coming out against this Administration the way the Left brutally pummeled the Bush Administration for arguably less.

Gates: Libya was not 'a vital interest'; Clinton: President took the 'best available option'


By Jordy Yager - 03/27/11 02:00 PM ET

Meet The Press: Gates: Libya Not in Vital U.S. Interests



Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday defended the U.S. military’s role in airstrikes against Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces but said that Libya was not an imminent threat to the United States when the president ordered them.

In two separate interviews Gates acknowledged that Libya did not hold “a vital interest” for the U.S., although he emphasized the geopolitical importance of Libya in a region fraught with recent instability.

“No I don’t think it’s a vital interest for the United States,” said Gates in a pre-taped interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired on Sunday. “But we clearly have interests there and it’s a part of the region which is a vital interest for the United States.”Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed that the airstrikes and the no-fly zone established by U.S.-led forces had “prevented a great humanitarian disaster” and that the consequences could have been catastrophic if President Obama had not engaged the U.S. military.

“The cries would be, ‘Why did the United States not do anything?’” said Clinton on ABC’s “This Week.” “How could you stand by when, you know, France and the United Kingdom and other Europeans and the Arab League and your Arab partners were saying, ‘you've got to do something?’”

Clinton elaborated in her interview with NBC, saying that it was critical to take action in Libya because of the potentially negative effect Gadhafi’s repression of the popular uprising could have had on its neighboring countries, Egypt and Tunisia, which both recently ousted their presidents and are in the midst of a politically uncertain period.

“There is no perfect option when one is looking at a situation like this,” she said. “I think that the president ordered the best available option.”

The ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he was “startled” by Gates’ comments and that Obama needs to fully communicate the U.S.’s “endgame,” or what it hopes to ultimately accomplish.

“I was startled to hear Secretary Gates say that Libya was not a vital interest [and] Secretary Clinton then came in with the fact that our European allies are very disturbed about the situation,” said Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). “And of course, we have justified military action as a humanitarian action to stop the shooting of civilians.”

After more than a week of airstrikes by U.S., British, and French forces, Gates said, “I think that we are at a point where a – where the establishment of the no-fly zone and the protection of cities from the kind of wholesale military assault that we have seen certainly in the East has been accomplished and now we can move to sustainment.”

Libyan rebels, who are fighting to remove Gadhafi after 42 years in power, pushed the pro-Gadhafi forces out of a key city in the eastern part of the country, according to news reports.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) on CNN’s “State of the Union” heralded the recent developments on Sunday as a sign of success that Gadhafi was “on his heels.”

Many Republicans and Democrats have expressed their fear of an open-ended U.S.-led military campaign and have criticized Obama for not communicating to them the U.S.’s overall objectives in Libya.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wrote to Obama earlier this week asking him, “If the strife in Libya becomes a protracted conflict, what are your Administration’s objectives for engaging with opposition forces, and what standards must a new regime meet to be recognized by our government?”

Obama has been rapidly trying to defuse congressional criticism, saying in his radio address on Saturday that the U.S. would have a limited military involvement in Libya going forward. On Friday, Obama held a conference call with Congressional leaders in which he laid out some details of his plan, and he is scheduled to give an address to the nation Monday evening on the topic.

On Sunday Gates said that as long as there is a no-fly zone, the U.S. will have a presence in the area, but that he didn’t know definitively how long the U.S. military would be engaged. Gates added that the Defense department was already planning to draw down its resources “in the very near future.”

“I don't think anybody knows the answer to that,” said Gates, responding to a question on ABC’s “This Week” of whether the U.S. would remain active in Libya until the end of the year.

Earlier this week NATO officials said that it would begin to take control of the enforcement of the no-fly zone over Libya as well as protecting Libya’s civilians.

Clinton, in another interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," sought to differentiate between the U.N. resolution's mandate to protect the civilian population and the president's stated goal of Gadhafi leaving power.

"I think what you’re seeing is the difference between a military mission and a policy objective," Clinton said. "We have an ongoing political effort that is really picking up steam to see if we can’t persuade ... others to convince Gadhafi to leave. So, we see the planes going up, but that is just a piece of an overall strategy."

When Congress returns next week, after a weeklong recess, lawmakers will most likely be hunting down more concrete answers, especially about the increasing cost of the U.S. military’s actions, which some estimate could already be close to $1 billion.

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday announced it would hold a hearing on Libya on Thursday. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has also announced a hearing. A briefing for all House members is scheduled on Wednesday.

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Gates: Libya Not "Vital Interest" for United States

Fox News military analyst Captain Chuck Nash reacts to Gates's comments and discusses a potential split in opinion between the defense secretary and other members of the Obama administration.

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Glenn questions why the Left is now backing the rebels with Muslim Brotherhood and AQ ties in the ME. He also highlights their concerns that Israel and the conservatives in America are the stumbling blocks to their goals.

Their plan is rumored to try and have a Palestinian State by this fall.


Glenn Beck-03/29/11-A




Glenn Beck-03/29/11-B





Glenn Beck-03/29/11-C

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Organized Chaos: Behind the Scenes in the Middle East

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E-mail

Written by William F. Jasper

Tuesday, 22 March 2011 10:15

“This is the most exciting story I’ve ever covered in my life,” gushed veteran journalist Charles Sennott. “I’ve been a reporter for 25 years. I’ve covered the Middle East for more than 15 of those years. It was just so thrilling, so breathtaking, so unpredictable, and really a journey for the whole country of Egypt but also for those correspondents who’ve covered the Middle East for a long time.” Sennott’s breathless reporting from Cairo’s Tahrir Square for GlobalPost, NPR, and PBS Frontline was not unique in its giddy enthusiasm for the “people power” revolutions sweeping Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and much of the Middle East. Indeed, his participatory excitement is a common narrative core running through most of the broadcast, print, and online news coverage of the still-developing turmoil in that ancient cauldron of political intrigue. The decades-old autocracies of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia have already been toppled, and as we go to press, the tyrannical regime of Libya’s terror-sponsoring dictator Moammar Ghadafi is on the ropes. And the fires of revolt are igniting or fully blazing in Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, and Morocco. There is a spirit within each of us that rejoices at seeing any of our human family successfully shaking off despotic chains. Americans, who have been blessed with a heritage of liberty beyond the dreams of most the Earth’s people, can especially identify with the sentiments of poet James Russell Lowell’s famous lines: When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west. The broad appeal of the current Mideast upheavals is enhanced by the appearance that they: 1) represent genuinely grassroots, spontaneous movements; and 2) represent the triumph of unarmed, mostly nonviolent masses against entrenched, absolute power. Compared to the bloodbaths that frequently accompany revolutions, the transitions in Egypt and Tunisia have been remarkably benign — thus far. Of course, they could quickly degenerate into fratricidal civil war, or Khomeini-style totalitarian oppression. And the same potential holds for virtually all of the current hot spots in northern Africa and the Middle East. The Jacobins, remember, did not unleash their infamous Reign of Terror at the start of the French Revolution, in 1789; they had to restrain their full bloodlust until 1793, when they had sufficiently consolidated their power. Consolidation is an essential stage of every revolution. Tragically, all too often this period of “peaceful” transition is a planned prelude to slaughter and tyranny, as demonstrated by Mao Tse-tung’s Communist Army in China, Fidel Castro’s July 26th Movement in Cuba, Pol Pot’s communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Hutu Interahamwe in Rwanda, Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guards in Iran, and dozens of other examples that could be cited. The astute observation of the British historian and statesman John Emerich Dalberg, more commonly known as Lord Acton, is apropos here. In his famous series of discourses entitled “Lectures on the French Revolution,” delivered at Cambridge University between 1895 and 1899, Lord Acton noted: The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult, but the design. Through all the fire and smoke we perceive the evidence of calculating organization. The managers remain studiously concealed and masked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first. The enormously wealthy Duke of Orleans (a cousin to King Louis XVI), the Count Mirabeau, and the infamously depraved Marquis de Sade are but a few of the rich and privileged conspirators who financed and organized the secret societies and criminal combinations that instigated the riots, demonstrations, and terrors of the French Revolution. Most of the major riots and revolutions of the modern age have, likewise, been guided by “managers” who “remain studiously concealed.” Planned Chaos Are there hidden managers of the current turbulence in the Middle East? Is there a design behind the tumult that the managed news media fail to see, or are consciously obscuring? According to the reportage from the mainstream media, the activities convulsing the “Arab Street” capitals are primarily the result of popular discontent and networking by the alienated youth of the Facebook and Twitter generation. The Muslim Brotherhood is a prime mover in these events, according to some reporters and analysts, but according to others their role has been greatly exaggerated. Previously unknown organizations and individuals have assumed the spotlight as supposed leaders of the uprisings. However, the reporting and analysis from the establishment sources invariably fail to mention the most critical facts concerning these individuals and organizations. The accompanying articles by Charles Scaliger and Christian Gomez focus, respectively, on two of the most important organized forces at work in the upheavals: the globalists, as represented most notably by the Council on Foreign Relations, and the communists or Marxist-Left. These forces are rarely mentioned in the major media reports, and if noted at all tend to be presented as opposite and rival forces. But these forces have, in fact, cooperated many times over the past several decades, to effect some of the most profound and tragic geopolitical revolutions in history, including the betrayal of China to Mao’s communists, and similar betrayals in Poland, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Africa, Nicaragua, Iran, etc. This treachery has been detailed in numerous articles in the pages of this magazine and, notably, in James Perloff’s indispensable study, The Shadows of Power: The Council on Foreign Relations and the American Decline (1988). In sum, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), has been pursuing a grand global strategy of “convergence,” in which enormous transfusions of taxpayer funds from the middle classes of America and Europe and vast amounts of our technology are transferred to the communist countries — under the guise of helping them “go capitalist.” This process, which has been accelerating for the past 30 years, has largely hollowed out America’s economy, reducing us almost to beggar status, while China has vaulted from beggar to global economic-political-military super-power. The same process has also taken us ever further down the socialist road, as the federal government has usurped more and more powers and taken over an ever-increasing share of the national economy. Economic convergence with China and Russia is already occurring on many levels, thanks to policies crafted, largely, by the hundreds of CFR members who have been strategically promoted to many of the top posts in our leading political, financial, philanthropic, academic, and media institutions. The Middle East has long been a key target of the communist leaders of Moscow and Beijing, who have coveted its oil and strategic sea lanes, among other things. Despite claims that communism is dead and that the Cold War is over, Russia and China have stepped up their efforts to penetrate, dominate, and annex the Middle East. There are undoubtedly now more KGB agents plying the Middle East than during the height of the Cold War, though of course the KGB has changed its name to SVR and FSB, and most of these agents operate as “capitalist” businessmen. A prime example is Yevgeny Primakov, the KGB’s former Mideast terrorism chief and top Arabist, who now serves Putin as head of the Russian Chamber of Commerce. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Primakov, and their minions swarm over the Middle East and operate through every conceivable venue: OPEC, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Organization of Islamic Conference, the Dialogue of Civilizations, the Russia-Arab Business Council, the Nonprofit Partnership Africa Alliance, the Africa-Russia Partnership & Success, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group, etc. China, flush with even more cash than Russia, is following a similar path. Yet there is very little in the American media about the enormous presence and influence of this growing Beijing-Moscow axis throughout the region. And despite all the fashionable talk in CFR circles about convergence and our new “partnerships” with Putin and Hu Jintao, their politburos in Moscow and Beijing have far different views about the kinds of regimes that are to be preferred in the Middle East than do most Americans. They are the backers of Iran and Syria, the two most dangerous terror states in the region. They support the new Hezbollah government in Lebanon, which fronts for Syria and Iran. While Americans have every reason to oppose the continued transfer of their wealth, in the form of foreign aid, to regimes such as Mubarak’s and Ben Ali’s, we also can hardly favor even worse regimes modeled on the likes of those in power in Beirut, Damascus, and Tehran. Yet that is a very distinct likelihood, as a result of the recent turnovers and the continued turmoil. Russia, China, Iran Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas have all hailed the toppling of Egypt’s Mubarak, and there is good reason to believe this is not merely opportunistic rhetoric; they undoubtedly intend to turn it into concrete benefit for their interests. CFR Handprints Everywhere Contrary to the conventional cover stories presenting the uprisings in Cairo, Tunis, and elsewhere as spontaneous bottom-up affairs, there is a great deal of evidence indicating that they were instead coordinated top-down events planned long before the first street demonstrations began. And like the slime trail in the garden that leads to the slug, the trail here leads back to the Council on Foreign Relations. Utilizing its unparalleled network of high-level members in the U.S. government, the United Nations, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Brookings Institution, and many NGOs, corporations, and philanthropic organizations, the CFR has employed a pincer attack pressuring the target governments with economic and diplomatic efforts from above, while funding Astroturf protests from below designed to look like real grass-roots affairs. As Charles Scaliger notes elsewhere in this issue, the savior whom the media has anointed as the next President of Egypt, Mohamed ElBaradei, was publicly picked over a year ago in the CFR’s journal Foreign Affairs as the “hero” who would save Egypt. ElBaradei, a UN factotum for nearly three decades at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is also a trustee of a high-level CFR-dominated think tank known as the International Crisis Group (ICG), along with billionaire left-wing activist George Soros (CFR) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (CFR), the Carter administration architect who (among many “accomplishments”) supervised the joint U.S.-Soviet overthrow of the Shah of Iran and his replacement by the virulently anti-American terrorism-sponsoring regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, as documented in The New American article “Iran and the Shah: What Really Happened” (May 12, 2009 issue). One of the forces credited in much of the media reports for launching the Egyptian demonstrations that shook Mubarak from power is the April 6 Youth Movement started by Ahmed Maher. One of the more interesting facts to surface in all of the commotion was that, far from being a lone cyber warrior “speaking truth to power,” Maher is actually a product of one of the CFR’s global Astroturf groups, the Alliance for Youth Movements (AYM), an outfit funded by the U.S. State Department (our tax dollars at work) and a passel of CFR corporate sponsors. Over the past several years, AYM has been helping train thousands of young activists from around the world to bring about Obama-style change and topple governments. Ahmed Maher was a participant in AYM’s major New York City conference in 2008. AYM was co-founded by Jared Cohen, a Rhodes Scholar who is an adjunct fellow at the CFR and director of Google Ideas, a major new entity at Google. Before going to Google, Cohen was on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff under both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. (Secretary Rice is a CFR member; Secretary Clinton is not, though her husband is a member, as are many of her underlings at State.) Cohen and his two co-founders, Jason Liebman and Roman Tsunder, comprise the three-man board of directors at AYM. In addition to funding from the State Department, additional financial backing for AYM has come from Google, Pepsi, CBS News, MSNBC, MTV, Facebook, National Geographic, Twitter, and Meetup. Another interesting name to surface at the epicenter of the current “digital democracy” revolution is Peter Ackerman, a CFR director known as the “Teflon Junk Bond King”; while his partner, Michael Milken, had to pay over $1 billion in fines and settlements and spend 22 months in jail, Ackerman walked away free — with a reported $500 million. Ackerman is the founding chair of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) and has authored two books that have become manuals for the “democracy” uprisings around the world: A Force More Powerful and Strategic Nonviolent Conflict. He teamed up with PBS to produce the TV documentary Bringing Down a Dictator and the series A Force More Powerful, which, reportedly, were being heavily promoted by the U.S. government in the Middle East during the year leading up to the regional commotions. Serving as Ackerman’s chair of academic advisors at ICNC is Dr. Stephen Zunes, a leftist professor and author who also serves on the board of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the Marxist “think tank” notorious for its pro-communist stances and its ties to the Soviet KGB and the Cuban DGI. Ackerman is also a member of the U.S. Advisory Council of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a U.S. government-funded operation that has worked closely with USAID (the State Department’s foreign aid arm) to promote the “people power” revolutions now rocking the Middle East. Besides Ackerman, the CFR members at USIP include J. Robinson West (USIP chairman of the Board of Directors), George E. Moose, Chester A. Crocker, Stephen D. Krasner, Richard H. Solomon, Michael H. Posner, Ann E. Rondeau, Frank Carlucci, Max Kampelman, and Marvin Kalb — to name but a few. With funding from USAID and foundations such as Rockefeller, Ford, and Car-negie, USIP has, since at least 2006, been organizing political opposition groups under its Muslim World Initiative and a series of conferences on “Political Oppositions in the Arab World,” which USIP conducted in Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco. Janus-faced “Diplomacy” The Obama administration was chastised by both the Left and the Right for indecisiveness and ineptitude for its public announcements of support for Mubarak and then the manner of its vacillation and flipflop to the side of the protesters. But what has been criticized as “amateur diplomacy” was more likely planned deception. While the foreign policy establishment at the CFR had already determined to dump Mubarak months (or years) before, Team Obama was likely tasked with reassuring the soon-to-be-deposed dictator that the United States was backing him up. Imagine a scene from one of the many gangland movies you’ve seen in which the Godfather embraces a “brother” with faux affection; the real purpose is to distract the victim while a knife is driven into his back. Mubarak may not have seen it coming; after all, he had been the darling of the American establishment for decades. On March 5, 2002, he was the speaker and guest of honor at a CFR star-studded gala in New York. The event was opened by Peter G. Peterson, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The Council has hosted leaders from our nation and around the world but not likely one more important to quelling the fires of violence and indeed to breaking this most unvirtuous circle of violence and to rebuilding dreams of peace than our guest today,” he told his distinguished guests. He continued: “My honor is to welcome President Mubarak on behalf of the Council members and guests and to say how honored we are to have you with us, Mr. President.... Matters in the Middle East can take a turn now for the better or worse. We all look to you, Mr. President, to help all of us toward that better future.” Many other leaders — some genuine, honorable allies (Shah Pahlavi, Anastasio Somoza, Ian Smith, Chiang Kai-shek, Moise Tshombe) and some tyrants (Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Robert Mugabe) — have been given similar red carpet treatment, only to have it jerked out from under them when it suits the “new world order” convergence policies of the globalist elites who run the Council on Foreign Relations.

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CNN Segment On Libya Titled "The New World Order"

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Rick Santorum: Barack Obama a U.N. puppet on Libya


Rick Santorum has repeatedly criticized Obama's approach to Libya. | AP Photo Close

By JUANA SUMMERS | 3/30/11 11:09 PM EDT Updated: 3/31/11 7:01 AM EDT

Rick Santorum says that when it comes to America's military intervention in Libya, the United Nations has been pulling President Barack Obama's puppet strings.

"He didn't do anything until the United Nations sort-of forced his hand," Santorum said on Fox News Wednesday night.

The former Pennsylvania senator has repeatedly criticized Obama's approach to Libya, calling the president "disinterested, detached, ambivalent and indecisive."

"It's one thing to engage the international community in something that you are leading and you want done," he said. "It is another thing to follow the international community — France, Portugal, and others — in something they want done. I think that is what happened here, not the president leading.

"Certainly the policy was not coherent and he was not out there leading," he added, "and trying to lead events to shape the course of what was going to go on in Libya, as opposed to reacting to what the international community wanted from us."

[American Patriot]

Wow. Accusations are starting to fly. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a push for impeachment shortly.

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Last night Glenn Beck exposed who some of the players are behind the riots and why

• Companion Post: Top 5 Revolutions Backed By George Soros

Glenn Beck-03/31/11-A




Glenn Beck-03/31/11-B




Glenn Beck-03/31/11-C

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Regular FOX Contributor Charles Payne "This Is About A One World Government"

[American Patriot]

Glenn Beck and Fox news again? Come on Vector don't you have any legitimate news people.

LMAO

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When you can't win the argument you must discredit the messenger..."Rules for Radicals"

Why Is Attempting To Discredit Glenn Beck So Popular?

Written by Steven Rosenblum in politics, TV, VIP



Why do the “mainstream” media and so many on the left want to silence Glenn Beck if, as they claim, he’s simply pitching “various conspiracy theories”? If he’s really such a raving lunatic, why waste so much time and energy – not disputing his claims with well-documented facts – but instead on trying to damage his credibility? It’s certainly true that many of the ideas that Beck posits are difficult to believe; it’s also true that in many cases he has been correct.

Like a page ripped directly from Rules for Radicals it seems that left-wing blowhards like Chris “thrill-up-my-leg” Matthews, self-described “socialist” Laurence O’Donnell and pretty much everyone else from MSNBC to The Huffington Post, The Daily Kos and Media Matters have spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to isolate and discredit a man that recent surveys have shown is regarded as having more credibility than almost anyone else in media, with the exception of Bill O’Reilly.

Far-left columnist David Corn writing for Politics Daily opined “Beck has viewed events in Egypt through his own rather warped filter. He claims that the rebellion is not about the people, not about democracy. Instead, he says, it’s a move by radical Islamists to take over Egypt, as part of a larger plan to install a caliphate that stretches from the Middle East through Europe and toward the United States.”

The fact is that Glenn Beck has not denied that many people on the streets of Cairo have a genuine desire for freedom and liberty. What he pointed out is that there are groups that are stirring the pot and have their own agendas, which can take advantage of the destabilization of the Mubarak government. He has said that Hosni Mubarak is horrible man that the United States has propped up with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, which only serves as motivation for those people that genuinely want freedom to hate the U.S.

Recently even respected conservative pundits like Bill Kristol- Editor of The Weekly Standard and Rich Lowry- of National Review Online have taken shots at Beck. Kristol says of Beck: “…hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.” Lowry calls Kristol’s editorial “a well-deserved shot at Glenn Beck’s latest wild theorizing.”

Unlike most pundits and radio talkers – right or left – Glenn Beck consistently admonishes his listeners with two basic concepts: “Don’t take me at my word. Do you own research.” And “I hope I’m wrong.” In other words, he strongly encourages his audience to engage in critical thinking. He is also confident enough in the research that he and his staff do to challenge his critics to back up their conspiracy theory allegations with facts.

Beck backs his often-wild sounding claims and assertions with facts, backed up by the words of those he points to as “progressives”, “radicals”, “socialists” and “Marxists”. His shows are packed with well-researched quotes, sound bites and videos, allowing you to hear — in their own words — the thoughts and ideologies of the people he talks about.

He’s been correct about the collapse of the housing market, the dramatic fall in the value of the dollar, the increase in fuel prices and the price of food.

He is quite right when he states that many of the policies that Barack Obama enacted so quickly – leading to the Tea Party movement – would have been enacted (albeit at a slower rate) by John McCain, had he been victorious in 2008.

Is Glenn Beck’s presentation sometimes over the top and dramatic? You bet. Who would watch such otherwise depressing television if it weren’t presented in a somewhat entertaining manner? But behind the circus act is usually a history lesson, a tutorial for people that would otherwise bury their heads in the sand rather than take a look at things too terrible to consider.

Why is it so far-fetched to think that socialists would work with Islamists towards a common goal? The idea of the enemy of my enemy is my friend is an old one. The Nazis (Democratic-Socialists) considered anyone that wasn’t an Arian to be beneath them. But it is historical fact that there were SS units made up primarily of Croatian-Muslims. It is also fact that Hitler allied himself with Japan, though he couldn’t have considered them equals under his ideology. No doubt after their mutual enemies were defeated they would have turned on each other. But until then they tolerated each other.

Why is it so insane to think that history would repeat itself, especially when people are so unwilling to learn from it?

Skeptics say that Islamic extremists hate communists, Marxists and socialists. They correctly point out that these disparate groups are natural enemies and conclude that they would never work together. While it’s true that Islamists would not want to live under Communism and vice-verse, it’s not about the end game. What it is about is their mutual desire for an end to capitalism and a need to destabilize pro-Western governments so that they can fill the power vacuum they hope to create.

What is more “insane”: pointing out the well-documented connections between Islamic extremist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah — all of whom have declared their intention to destroy Israel and establish Islamic rule — and left-wing radicals like Bill Ayers & Bernadine Dohrn (unrepentant domestic terrorists) and Code Pink. Or is it more delusional to declare that the Muslim Brotherhood is just a political movement, which has suddenly renounced violence?

If you understand the concept of taqiyya, which is the Muslim requirement that Jihadists lie to Infidels in order to achieve their goal of establishing a caliphate, then the latter is what is insane.

You may not like the message that Glenn Beck is trying to impart, but don’t shoot the messenger. Like Paul Revere, who warned the Colonists that the Redcoats were coming, Glenn Beck is trying to warn us of a coming danger.

Unlike Revere, Beck is only asking us to check for ourselves before the danger is at our doorsteps. He isn’t asking us to take up arms- or even to take his theories at face value- only to be critical-thinkers who are informed and prepared.

Thanks to the Internet we have virtually limitless sources of information, quite literally, at our fingertips. Much of what we may find is nonsense, but when you go to YouTube and see and hear people telling you their plans, in their own words, it’s hard to ignore. Not to mention, potentially devastating for our country and western civilization as a whole.


George Soros' Media Matters Declares War on FOX News

03/28/11 11:38 AM Justin Credible



If there's something to learn from this article it's that Media Matters for America doesn't matter at all. They do prove the liberal modus operandi that free speech is only free if it coincides with the liberal agenda. Over the weekend, Politico reported that the criminal-front group is waging an all-out war on FOX News because they believe "it's not a news organization" and is the "defacto leader of the GOP." This is an attempt to silence the opposition and is hardly a new tactic of the left. The takeaway, though, is that this biased, pathetic, conservative watchdog group is trying to become relevant because they have zero credibility.

The liberal organization, which used to claim to monitor distortions of the facts by conservatives in the media, has shifted gears to focusing solely on FOX News, which offers the most balanced news reporting of any organization. Their opinion shows obviously come from the conservative perspective, but they also have both conservative and liberal sides when debating the issues. Other media outlets can't say the same.

Founded by the gay, former conservative (allegedly) David Brock, this "non-profit" may have broken the law by declaring their war publicly. A key funder of the organization is none other than the radical leftist billionaire, George Soros. The organization has little credibility, if any, but they often feed talking points to the White House and the liberal media. They do this by transcribing everything that's said on FOX News each and every day. It's pathetic and they constantly take comments out of context so it fits their agenda.

"[The group will] focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests - whether that be here or looking at what's going on in London right now."

Murdoch is the anti-Christ to liberals, despite his support for Hillary Clinton in '08. He's also pro-amnesty. The fact remains that liberals want to silence the opposition. FOX News has the highest ratings of any other news outlet by a substantial amount. The White House also declared war on FOX News during '09, but that didn't go very well. The target here isn't FOX News, but anyone with an opposing view of these extreme liberals.

"We made a list of every single person who works at FOX and tried to figure out who might be disgruntled and why, and we went out to try to meet them. Clearly, somebody in that organization is giving us primary source documents."

Media Matters has put together an opposition list that includes information on mid to senior level executives and producers. These liberals are taking this seriously, which is important, considering their situation with "the bucket." The video below from Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld explains the situation clearly. This is literally a war to discredit and dismantle FOX News because they're objective to the administration. Think about history and where this happened in the past. Exactly.

There isn't a big conspiracy at FOX News. They are slanted to the right, just as every other news outlet is slanted to the left. Apparently, that's one too many. The article references a bureau chief who had sent emails referencing the undocumented President Obama's references to socialism and Marxism. That's not a smoking gun - Obama has made countless references to socialism throughout his life.

Although the news came as shocking, it exposes the extreme ideology of liberals. That's the most important takeaway from Media Matters and the philanthropic George Soros. The pathetic group of bed wetters have nothing to show for their lives - this is a desperate attempt to make the irrelevant relevant. FOX News will win the "war" without trying. Media Matters can use all the guerilla warfare tactics they want, but the American people will have none of this. Silencing the opposition is not the American way.

Justin Credible is a contributing editor for Habledash.

[American Patriot]

That's what I'm talking about. Apparently he has no credibility according to certain visitors on this site. I mean, we should ALL listen to Wallis' reason, huh?

LMAO

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Glenn looks at the Middle East uprising and the Lefts activity in the region. Obama backs the new Muslim Ivorian President over the Christian President there now. The same place where 1000 Christian were just killed.

In May revolutions by Muslims and the Left are converging on several fronts.

Glenn Beck 04 04 2011

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Libyan Rebel Commander: "Cut Gadaffi's Throat, Then Establish an Islamic State."

Pajamas Media ^ | April 4, 2011
Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 6:34:13 AM by T.L.Sink

While American intelligence experts search for "flickers" of jihadist involvement in the Libyan rebellion, a French reporter had no problem finding numerous jihadists on the front. "The Jihadists Go to the Front" is the title of French journalist Julien Fouchet's report from eastern Libya.

Fouchet encountered a flagrant jihadist presence and met with participants who talked openly about their dedication to jihad and/or their desire to establish an Islamic state. Fouchet spotted a commander on a sand dune giving orders by satellite phone. "You can't speak to him," rebel fighters told Fouchet. "He's not fighting for Libya, it's for Allah."

Further to the east Fouchet met a certain Sheikh Al-Hasy, director of the town's mosque who said "Those who followed the prophet Mohammed were the first jihadists so we're burying our martyrs next to them." Photos taken by Fouchet show a wall of the mosque covered with portraits of the "martyrs." Another commander told Fouchet "In the past I didn't like NATO.

Now that they are HELPING US in Libya, it's different." As to his goals, "al-Sadi" explained to Fouchet that he had rejoined the jihad in order to "cut Gaddafi's throat and establish an Islamic state."

(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...

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The CIA’s Libya Rebels: The Same Terrorists who Killed US, NATO Troops in Iraq

[Translate]

2007 West Point Study Shows Benghazi-Darnah-Tobruk Area was a World Leader in Al Qaeda Suicide Bomber Recruitment

“Serpents, thirst, heat, and sand … Libya alone can present a multitude of woes that it would beseem men to fly from.”
Lucan, Pharsalia

Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net
March 24, 2011

Washington DC, March 24, 2011 — The current military attack on Libya has been motivated by UN Security Council resolution 1973 with the need to protect civilians. Statements by President Obama, British Prime Minister Cameron, French President Sarkozy, and other leaders have stressed the humanitarian nature of the intervention, which is said to aim at preventing a massacre of pro-democracy forces and human rights advocates by the Qaddafi regime.

But at the same time, many commentators have voiced anxiety because of the mystery which surrounds the anti-Qaddafi transitional government which emerged at the beginning of March in the city of Benghazi, located in the Cyrenaica district of north-eastern Libya. This government has already been recognized by France and Portugal as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people. The rebel council seems to be composed of just over 30 delegates, many of whom are enveloped in obscurity. In addition, the names of more than a dozen members of the rebel council are being kept secret, allegedly to protect them from the vengeance of Qaddafi. But there may be other reasons for the anonymity of these figures. Despite much uncertainty, the United Nations and its several key NATO countries, including the United States, have rushed forward to assist the armed forces of this rebel regime with air strikes, leading to the loss of one or two coalition aircraft and the prospect of heavier losses to come, especially if there should be an invasion. It is high time that American and European publics learned something more about this rebel regime which is supposed to represent a democratic and humanitarian alternative to Gaddafi.

The rebels are clearly not civilians, but an armed force. What kind of an armed force?

Since many of the rebel leaders are so difficult to research from afar, and since a sociological profile of the rebels cannot be done on the ground in the midst of warfare, perhaps the typical methods of social history can be called on for help. Is there a way for us to gain deeper insight into the climate of opinion which prevails in such northeastern Libyan cities as Benghazi, Tobruk, and Darnah, the main population centers of the rebellion?

Download West Point Study (pdf)

It turns out that there is, in the form of a December 2007 West Point study examining the background of foreign guerrilla fighters — jihadis or mujahedin, including suicide bombers — crossing the Syrian border into Iraq during the 2006-2007 timeframe, under the auspices of the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda. This study is based on a mass of about 600 Al Qaeda personnel files which were captured by US forces in the fall of 2007, and analyzed at West Point using a methodology which we will discuss after having presented the main findings. The resulting study¹ permits us to make important findings about the mentality and belief structures of the northeastern Libyan population that is furnishing the basis for the rebellion, permitting important conclusions about the political nature of the anti-Qaddafi revolt in these areas.

Darnah, northeast Libya: World Capital of Jihadis

The most striking finding which emerges from the West Point study is that the corridor which goes from Benghazi to Tobruk, passing through the city of Darnah (also transliterated as Derna) them represents one of the greatest concentrations of jihadi terrorists to be found anywhere in the world, and by some measures can be regarded as the leading source of suicide bombers anywhere on the planet. Darnah, with one terrorist fighter sent into Iraq to kill Americans for every 1,000 to 1,500 persons of population, emerges as suicide bomber heaven, easily surpassing the closest competitor, which was Riyad, Saudi Arabia.



According to West Point authors Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, Saudi Arabia took first place as regards absolute numbers of jihadis sent to combat the United States and other coalition members in Iraq during the time frame in question. Libya, a country less than one fourth as populous, took second place. Saudi Arabia sent 41% of the fighters. According to Felter and Fishman, “Libya was the next most common country of origin, with 18.8% (112) of the fighters listing their nationality stating they hailed from Libya.” Other much larger countries were far behind: “Syria, Yemen, and Algeria were the next most common origin countries with 8.2% (49), 8.1% (48), and 7.2% (43), respectively. Moroccans accounted for 6.1% (36) of the records and Jordanians 1.9% (11).”²

This means that almost one fifth of the foreign fighters entering Iraq across the Syrian border came from Libya, a country of just over 6 million people. A higher proportion of Libyans were interested in fighting in Iraq than any other country contributing mujahedin. Felter and Fishman point out: “Almost 19 percent of the fighters in the Sinjar Records came from Libya alone. Furthermore, Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality in the Sinjar Records, including Saudi Arabia.” (See the chart from the West Point report, page 9)³



But since the Al Qaeda personnel files contain the residence or hometown of the foreign fighters in question, we can determine that the desire to travel to Iraq to kill Americans was not evenly distributed across Libya, but was highly concentrated precisely in those areas around Benghazi which are today the epicenters of the revolt against Colonel Gaddafi which the US, Britain, France, and others are so eagerly supporting.

As Daya Gamage of the Asia Tribune comments in a recent article on the West Point study, “…alarmingly for Western policymakers, most of the fighters came from eastern Libya, the center of the current uprising against Muammar el-Qaddafi. The eastern Libyan city of Darnah sent more fighters to Iraq than any other single city or town, according to the West Point report. It noted that 52 militants came to Iraq from Darnah, a city of just 80,000 people (the second-largest source of fighters was Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which has a population of more than 4 million). Benghazi, the capital of Libya’s provisional government declared by the anti-Qaddafi rebels, sent in 21 fighters, again a disproportionate number of the whole.”⁴ Obscure Darnah edged out metropolitan Riyadh by 52 fighters to 51. Qaddafi’s stronghold of Tripoli, by contrast, barely shows up in the statistics at all.

(See chart from West Point report, page 12)

What explains this extraordinary concentration of anti-American fighters in Benghazi and Darnah? The answer seems related to extremist schools of theology and politics which flourished in these areas. As the West Point report notes: “Both Darnah and Benghazi have long been associated with Islamic militancy in Libya.” These areas are in theological and tribal conflict with the central government of Colonel Gaddafi, in addition to being politically opposed to him. Whether such a theological conflict is worth the deaths of still more American and European soldiers is a question which needs urgently to be answered.



Felter and Fishman remark that “The vast majority of Libyan fighters that included their hometown in the Sinjar Records resided in the country’s northeast, particularly the coastal cities of Darnah 60.2% (52) and Benghazi 23.9% (21). Both Darnah and Benghazi have long been associated with Islamic militancy in Libya, in particular for an uprising by Islamist organizations in the mid-1990s. The Libyan government blamed the uprising on ‘infiltrators from the Sudan and Egypt’ and one group—the Libyan Fighting Group (jama-ah al-libiyah al-muqatilah)—claimed to have Afghan veterans in its ranks. The Libyan uprisings became extraordinarily violent.”⁵

Northeastern Libya: Highest Density of Suicide Bombers

Another remarkable feature of the Libyan contribution to the war against US forces inside Iraq is the marked propensity of the northeastern Libyans to choose the role of suicide bomber as their preferred method of struggle. As the West Point study states, “Of the 112 Libyans in the Records, 54.4% (61) listed their ‘work.’ Fully 85.2% (51) of these Libyan fighters listed “suicide bomber” as their work in Iraq.”⁶ This means that the northeastern Libyans were far more apt to choose the role of suicide bomber than those from any other country: “Libyan fighters were much more likely than other nationalities to be listed as suicide bombers (85% for Libyans, 56% for all others).”⁷

The anti-Qaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) Merges with al Qaeda, 2007

The specific institutional basis for the recruitment of guerrilla fighters in northeastern Libya is associated with an organization which previously called itself the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). During the course of 2007, the LIFG declared itself an official subsidiary of al Qaeda, later assuming the name of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). As a result of this 2007 merger, an increased number of guerrilla fighters arrived in Iraq from Libya. According to Felter and Fishman, “The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al-Qaeda, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda on November 3, 2007.”⁸ This merger is confirmed by other sources: A 2008 statement attributed to Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group has joined al-Qaeda.⁹

Terrorist “Emir” Touts Key Role of Benghazi, Darnah in al Qaeda

The West Point study makes clear that the main bulwarks of the LIFG and of the later AQIM were the twin cities of Benghazi and Darnah. This is documented in a statement by Abu Layth al-Libi, the self-styled “Emir” of the LIFG, who later became a top official of al Qaeda. At the time of the 2007 merger, “Abu Layth al-Libi, LIFG’s Emir, reinforced Benghazi and Darnah’s importance to Libyan jihadis in his announcement that LIFG had joined al-Qa’ida, saying: ‘It is with the grace of God that we were hoisting the banner of jihad against this apostate regime under the leadership of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which sacrificed the elite of its sons and commanders in combating this regime whose blood was spilled on the mountains of Darnah, the streets of Benghazi, the outskirts of Tripoli, the desert of Sabha, and the sands of the beach.’”¹⁰

This 2007 merger meant that the Libyan recruits for Al Qaeda became an increasingly important part of the activity of this organization as a whole, shifting the center of gravity to some degree away from the Saudis and Egyptians who had previously been most conspicuous. As Felter and Fishman comment, “Libyan factions (primarily the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) are increasingly important in al-Qa’ida. The Sinjar Records offer some evidence that Libyans began surging into Iraq in larger numbers beginning in May 2007. Most of the Libyan recruits came from cities in northeast Libya, an area long known for jihadi-linked militancy.”¹¹

The December 2007 West Point study concludes by formulating some policy options for the United States government. One approach, the authors suggest, would be for the United States to cooperate with existing Arab governments against the terrorists. As Felter and Fishman write, “The Syrian and Libyan governments share the United States’ concerns about violent salafi-jihadi ideology and the violence perpetrated by its adherents. These governments, like others in the Middle East, fear violence inside their borders and would much rather radical elements go to Iraq rather than cause unrest at home. U.S. and Coalition efforts to stem the flow of fighters into Iraq will be enhanced if they address the entire logistical chain that supports the movement of these individuals—beginning in their home countries — rather than just their Syrian entry points. The U.S. may be able to increase cooperation from governments to stem the flow of fighters into Iraq by addressing their concerns about domestic jihadi violence.”¹²

Given the course of subsequent events, we are on firm ground in concluding that this option was not the one selected, neither in the closing years of the Bush administration nor during the first half of the Obama administration.

The West Point study also offers another, more sinister perspective. Felter and Fishman hint that it might be possible to use the former LIFG components of Al Qaeda against the government of Colonel Qaddafi in Libya, in essence creating a de facto alliance between the United States and a segment of the terrorist organization. The West Point report notes: “The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s unification with al-Qa’ida and its apparent decision to prioritize providing logistical support to the Islamic State of Iraq is likely controversial within the organization. It is likely that some LIFG factions still want to prioritize the fight against the Libyan regime, rather than the fight in Iraq. It may be possible to exacerbate schisms within LIFG, and between LIFG’s leaders and al-Qa’ida’s traditional Egyptian and Saudi power-base.”¹³ This suggests the US policy we see today, that of allying with the obscurantist and reactionary al Qaeda fanatics in Libya against the Nasserist modernizer Qaddafi.

Arming the Rebels: The Experience of Afghanistan

Looking back at the tragic experience of US efforts to incite the population of Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation in the years after 1979, it should be clear that the policy of the Reagan White House to arm the Afghan mujahedin with Stinger missiles and other modern weapons turned out to be highly destructive for the United States. As current Defense Secretary Robert Gates comes close to admitting in his memoirs, Al Qaeda was created during those years by the United States as a form of Arab Legion against the Soviet presence, with long-term results which have been highly lamented.

Today, it is clear that the United States is providing modern weapons for the Libyan rebels through Saudi Arabia and across the Egyptian border with the active assistance of the Egyptian army and of the newly installed pro-US Egyptian military junta.¹⁴ This is a direct violation of UN Security Council resolution 1973, which calls for a complete arms embargo on Libya.

The assumption is that these weapons will be used against Gaddafi in the coming weeks. But, given the violently anti-American nature of the population of northeast Libya that is now being armed, there is no certainty that these weapons will not be soon turned against those who have provided them.

A broader problem is represented by the conduct of the future Libyan government dominated by the current rebel council with its large current majority of northeastern Islamists, or of a similar government of a future Cyrenaica rump state. To the extent that such regimes will have access to oil revenues, obvious problems of international security are posed. Gamage wonders: “If the rebellion succeeds in toppling the Qaddafi regime it will have direct access to the tens of billions of dollars that Qaddafi is believed to have squirreled away in overseas accounts during his four-decade rule.”¹⁵ Given the northeast Libyan mentality, we can imagine what such revenues might be used for.

What is al Qaeda and Why the CIA Has Used It

Al Qaeda is not a centralized organization, but rather a gaggle or congeries of fanatics, dupes, psychotics, misfits, double agents, provocateurs, mercenaries, and other elements. As noted, Al Qaeda was founded by the United States and the British during the struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Many of its leaders, such as the reputed second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri and the current rising star Anwar Awlaki, are evidently double agents of MI-6 and/or the CIA. The basic belief structure of Al Qaeda is that all existing Arab and Moslem governments are illegitimate and should be destroyed, because they do not represent the caliphate which Al Qaeda asserts is described by the Koran. This means that the Al Qaeda ideology offers a ready and easy way for the Anglo-American secret intelligence agencies to attack and destabilize existing Arab and Muslim governments as part of the ceaseless need of imperialism and colonialism to loot and attack the developing nations. This is precisely what is happening in Libya today.

Al Qaeda emerged from the cultural and political milieu of the Moslem Brotherhood or Ikhwan, itself a creation of British intelligence in Egypt in the late 1920s. The US and the British used the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to oppose the successful anti-imperialist policies of Egyptian President Nasser, who scored immense victories for his country by nationalizing the Suez Canal and building the Aswan High Dam, without which modern Egypt would be simply unthinkable. The Muslim brotherhood provided an active and capable fifth column of foreign agents against Nasser, in the same way that the official website of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is trumpeting its support for the rebellion against Colonel Qaddafi.

I have discussed the nature of Al Qaeda at some length in my recent book entitled 9/11 Synthetic Terrorism: Made in USA, and that analysis cannot be repeated here. It is enough to say that we do not need to believe in all the fantastic mythology which the United States government has spun around the name of Al Qaeda in order to recognize the basic fact that militants or patsies who spontaneously join al Qaeda are often sincerely motivated by a deep hatred of the United States and a burning desire to kill Americans, as well as Europeans. The Bush administration policy used the alleged presence of Al Qaeda as a pretext for direct military attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. The Obama administration is now doing something different, intervening on the side of a rebellion in which Al Qaeda and its co-thinkers are heavily represented while attacking the secular authoritarian government of Colonel Gaddafi. Both of these policies are bankrupt and must be abandoned.

Rebel Leaders Jalil and Younis, Plus Most of Rebel Council are Members of the al Qaeda-linked Harabi Tribe

The result of the present inquiry is that the Libyan branch of Al Qaeda represents a continuum with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group centered in Darnah and Benghazi. The ethnic base of the Libyan Islamic fighting group is apparently to be found in the anti-Qaddafi Harabi tribe, the tribe which makes up the vast majority of the rebel council including the two dominant rebel leaders, Abdul Fatah Younis and Mustafa Abdul Jalil. The evidence thus suggests that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the elite of the Harabi tribe, and the rebel council supported by Obama all overlap for all practical purposes. As the late Foreign Minister of Guyana Fred Wills, a real fighter against imperialism and neo-colonialism, taught me many years ago, political formations in developing countries (and not just there) are often a mask for ethnic and religious rivalries; so it is in Libya. The rebellion against Qaddafi is a toxic brew compounded of fanatical hatred of Qaddafi, Islamism, tribalism, and localism. From this point of view, Obama has foolishly chosen to take sides in a tribal war.

When Hillary Clinton went to Paris to be introduced to the Libyan rebels by French President Sarkozy, she met the US-educated Libyan opposition leader Mahmoud Jibril, already known to readers of Wikileaks document dumps as a favorite of the US.¹⁶

While Jibril might be considered presentable in Paris, the real leaders of the Libyan insurrection would appear to be Jalil and Younis, both former ministers under Qaddafi. Jalil seems to be the primus inter pares, at least for the moment: “Mustafa Abdul Jalil or Abdul-Jalil (Arabic: مصطفى عبد الجليل, also transcribed Abdul-Jelil, Abd-al-Jalil, Abdel-Jalil or Abdeljalil; and frequently but erroneously as Abud Al Jeleil) (born 1952) is a Libyan politician. He was the Minister of Justice (unofficially, the Secretary of the General People’s Committee) under Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi…. Abdul Jalil has been identified as the Chairman of the National Transitional Council based in Benghazi… although this position is contested by others in the uprising due to his past connections to Gaddafi’s regime.”¹⁷

As for Younis, he has been closely associated with Qaddafi since the 1968-9 seizure of power: “Abdul Fatah Younis (Arabic: عبد الفتاح يونس) is a senior military officer in Libya. He held the rank of General and the post of Minister of Interior, but resigned on 22 February 2011….”¹⁸

What should concern us most is that both Jalil and Younis come from the Haribi tribe, the dominant one in northeast Libya, and the one that overlaps with al Qaeda. According to Stratfor, the “…Harabi tribe is a historically powerful umbrella tribe in eastern Libya that saw their influence wane under Col. Gadhafi. The Libyan leader confiscated swaths of tribal members’ land and redistributed it to weaker and more loyal tribes…. Many of the leaders now emerging in eastern Libya hail from the Harabi tribe, including the head of the provisional government set up in Benghazi, Abdel Mustafa Jalil, and Abdel Fatah Younis, who assumed a key leadership role over the defected military ranks early in the uprising.”¹⁹

This is like a presidential ticket where both candidates are from the same state, except that Libya’s ferocious tribal rivalries make the problem infinitely worse.

The Rebel Council: Half the Names Are Kept Secret; Why?

This picture of a narrow, sectarian tribal and regional base does not improve when we look at the rebel council as a whole. According to one recent version, the rebel council is “chaired by the well-spoken former justice minister for Libya, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, [and] consists of 31 members, ostensibly representatives from across Libya, of whom many cannot be named for “security reasons”…. “The key players on the council, at least those who we know about, all hail from the north-eastern Harabi confederation of tribes. These tribes have strong affiliations with Benghazi that date back to before the 1969 revolution which brought Gaddafi to power.”²⁰

Other accounts agree about the number of representatives: “The council has 31 members; the identities of several members has not been made public to protect their own safety.”²¹

Given what we know about the extraordinary density of LIFG and all Qaeda fanatics in northeast Libya, we are authorized to wonder as to whether so many members of the council are being kept secret in order to protect them from Qaddafi, or whether the goal is to prevent them from being recognized in the west as al Qaeda terrorists or sympathizers. The latter seems to be a more accurate summary of the real state of affairs.

Names released so far include: Mustafa Abduljaleel; Ashour Hamed Bourashed of Darna city; Othman Suleiman El-Megyrahi of the Batnan area; Al Butnan of the Egypt border and Tobruk; Ahmed Abduraba Al-Abaar of Benghazi city; Fathi Mohamed Baja of Benghazi city; Abdelhafed Abdelkader Ghoga of Benghazi city; Mr. Omar El-Hariri for Military Affairs; and Dr. Mahmoud Jibril, Ibrahim El-Werfali and Dr. Ali Aziz Al-Eisawi for foreign affairs.²²

The State Department needs to interrogate these figures, starting perhaps with Ashour Hamed Bourashed, the delegate from the terrorist and suicide bomber stronghold of Darnah.
How Many al Qaeda Members, Veterans, or Sympathizers are on the Rebel Council?

Seeing as clearly as we can in the fog of war, it looks like slightly more than a dozen of the members of the rebel council have had their names officially published — in any case, not more than half of the reported 31 members.

The US and European media have not taken the lead in identifying for us the names that are now known, and they above all have not called attention to the majority of the rebel council who are still lurking in the shadows of total secrecy. We must therefore demand to know how many LIFG and/or al Qaeda members, veterans, or sympathizers currently hold seats on the rebel council.

We are thus witnessing an attempt by the Harabi tribe to seize dominance over the 140 tribes of Libya. The Harabi are already practically hegemonic among the tribes of Cyrenaica. At the center of the Harabi Confederation is the Obeidat tribe, which is divided into 15 sub-tribes.²³ All of this might be of purely academic ethnographic interest, were it not for the fact of the striking overlap between the Harabi tribe and the LIFG and al Qaeda.

The Senussi Movement of Libya — Monarchist Democracy?

The political-religious tradition of northeast Libya makes this area such fertile ground for the more extreme Muslim sects and also predisposes it to monarchism rather than to the more modern forms of government favored by Qaddafi. The relevant regional tradition is that of the Senussi or Sanussi order, an anti-western Moslem sect. In Libya the Senussi order is closely associated with monarchism, since King Idris I, the ruler installed by the British in 1951 who was overthrown by Gaddafi in 1969, was also the leader of the Senussi order. The Senussi directed the rebellion against Italian colonialism in the person of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani and his army in the 1930s. Today, the rebels use the monarchist flag, and may advocate the return to the throne of one of the two pretenders to the Idris line. They are far closer to monarchism than to democracy.

King Idris, Revered by the Libyan Rebels of Today

Here is the Stratfor view of King Idris and the Senussi: “King Idris came from a line of rulers of the Sanussi order, a Sufi religious order founded in 1842 in Al Bayda, that practices a conservative and austere form of Islam. The Sanussiyah represented a political force in Cyrenaica that preceded the creation of the modern state of Libya, and whose reverberations continue to be felt to this day. It is no coincidence that this region is the home of Libyan jihadism, with groups like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The Gadhafi family has thus been calling the current uprising an elaborate Islamist plot….”²⁴ Under the monarchy, Libya was by some estimates absolutely the poorest country in the world. Today, Libya ranks 53 on the UN Human Development Index and qualifies as the most developed country in Africa, ahead of Russia, Brazil, Ukraine, and Venezuela. Qaddafi’s stewardship has objective merits which cannot be seriously denied.

Glen Ford’s Black Agenda Report has correctly sought to show the racist and reactionary character of the Libyan insurrection. The tribes of southern Libya, known as the Fezzan, are dark skinned. The tribal underpinning of the Gaddafi regime has been an alliance of the tribes of the West, the center, and the southern Fezzan, against the Harabi and the Obeidat, who identify with the former monarchist ruling class. The Harabi and Obeidat are known to nurture a deep racist hatred against the Fezzan. This was expressed in frequent news reports from the pro-imperialist media at the beginning of the rebellion evidently inspired by Harabi accounts, according to which black people in Libya had to be treated as mercenaries working for Gaddafi — with the clear implication that they were to be exterminated.

These racist inventions are still being repeated by quackademics like Dean Slaughter of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. And in fact, large numbers of black Africans from Chad and other countries working in Libyan have been systematically lynched and massacred by the anti-Gaddafi forces. The Obama White House, for all its empty talk of not wanting to repeat the massacre in Rwanda, has conveniently ignored this shocking story of real genocide at the hands of its new racist friends in Cyrenaica.

Against the obscurantism of the Senussi, Qaddafi has advanced the Moslem equivalent of the priesthood of all believers, arguing that no caliphate is necessary in order to discover the meaning of the Koran. He has supplemented this with a pan African perspective. Gerald A. Perreira of the Black Agenda Report writes the following about the theological division between Gaddafi and the neo-Senussi of northeast Libya, as well as other obscuranitsts: “Al Qaeda is in the Sahara on his borders and the International Union of Muslim Scholars is calling for [Qaddafi] to be tried in a court…. [Qaddafi] has questioned the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda from a Quranic/theological perspective and is one of the few political leaders equipped to do so…. Benghazi has always been at the heart of counter-revolution in Libya, fostering reactionary Islamic movements such as the Wahhabis and Salafists. It is these people who founded the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group based in Benghazi which allies itself with Al Qaeda and who have, over the years, been responsible for the assassination of leading members of the Libyan revolutionary committees.”²⁵ And what would be for example the status of women under the neo-Senussi of the Benghazi rebel council?

Al Qaeda from Demon to US ally in Libya

For those who attempt to follow the ins and outs of the CIA’s management of its various patsy organizations inside the realm of presumed Islamic terrorism, it may be useful to trace the transformation of the LIFG-AQIM from deadly enemy to close ally. This phenomenon is closely linked to the general reversal of the ideological fronts of US imperialism that marks the divide between the Bush-Cheney-neocon administrations and the current Obama-Brzezinski-International Crisis Group regime. The Bush approach was to use the alleged presence of Al Qaeda as a reason for direct military attack.

The Obama method is to use Al Qaeda to overthrow independent governments, and then either Balkanize and partition the countries in question, or else use them as kamikaze puppets against larger enemies like Russia, China, or Iran.

This approach implies a more or less open fraternization with terrorist groups, which was signaled in a general way in Obamas famous Cairo speech of 2009. The links of the Obama campaign to the terrorist organizations deployed by the CIA against Russia were already a matter of public record three years ago.²⁶

But such a reversal of field cannot be improvised overnight; it took several years of preparation. On July 10, 2009, The London Daily Telegraph reported that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group had split with Al Qaeda. This was when the United States had decided to de-emphasize the Iraq war, and also to prepare to use the Sunni Moslem Brotherhood and its Sunni Al Qaeda offshoot for the destabilization of the leading Arab states preparatory to turning them against Shiite Iran. Paul Cruikshank wrote at that time in the New York Daily News about one top LIFG honcho who wanted to dial back the relation to al Qaeda and the infamous Osama Bin Laden; this was “Noman Benotman, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. While mainstream Muslim leaders have long criticized Al Qaeda, these critics have the jihadist credentials to make their criticisms bite.”²⁷ But by this time some LIFG bosses had moved up into al Qaeda: the London Daily Telegraph reported that senior Al Qaeda members Abu Yahya al-Libi and Abu Laith al-Libi were LIFG members. Around this time, Qaddafi released some LIFG fighters in an ill-advsided humanitarian gesture.

Northeast Libyan Jihadis Killing US, NATO Forces in Afghanistan Right Now

One of the fatal contradictions in the current State Department and CIA policy is that it aims at a cordial alliance with Al Qaeda killers in northeast Libya, at the very moment when the United States and NATO are mercilessly bombing the civilian northwest Pakistan in the name of a total war against Al Qaeda, and US and NATO forces are being killed by Al Qaeda guerrillas in that same Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of war. The force of this glaring contradiction causes the entire edifice of US war propaganda to collapse. The US has long since lost any basis in morality for military force.

In fact, terrorist fighters from northeast Libya may be killing US and NATO troops in Afghanistan right now, even as the US and NATO protect their home base from the Qaddafi government. According to this account, a top Al Qaeda commander in northwest Pakistan was killed by US action as recently as October 2010: “A senior al Qaeda leader who serves as al Qaeda’s ambassador to Iran, and is wanted by the US, is reported to have been killed in a Predator air strike in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan two days ago…. [This was] Atiyah Abd al Rahman, a Libyan national who has been based in Iran and served as Osama bin Laden’s ambassador to the mullahs. Unconfirmed press reports indicate that Rahman was killed in an airstrike….”²⁸ The US State Department’s Rewards for Justice page for Atiyah Abd al Rahman notes that he was al Qaeda’s “emissary in Iran as appointed by Osama bin Ladin.”

Atiyah “recruited and facilitated talks with other Islamic groups to operate under” al Qaeda and was “also a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and Ansar al Sunna.”²⁹ Rahman was ranked high enough in al Qaeda to be able to give orders to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qeada in Iraq, in 2005.

Also killed in Pakistan was another apparent northeast Libyan going by the name of Khalid al Harabi, whose choice of a nom de guerre may well link him to the jihadi farm among the Harabi tribe in Cyrenaica. According to one account, “Khalid al Harabi is an alias for Khalid Habib, al Qaeda’s former military commander who was killed in a US Predator strike in October 2008.”³⁰

The Scenario Uncovered by the 1995 Shayler Affair is Operative Today

In 1995, David Shayler, an official of the British counterintelligence organization MI-5, became aware that his counterpart at the British foreign espionage organization MI-6 had paid the sum of £100,000 to an Al Qaeda affiliate in exchange for the attempt to assassinate Qaddafi. The assassination attempt did occur, and killed several innocent bystanders, but failed to eliminate the Libyan ruler. As Shayler understood the MI-6 scenario, it included the liquidation of Gaddafi, followed by the descent of Libya into chaos and tribal warfare, with a possible option for a direct seizure of power by al Qaeda itself. This situation would then provide a pretext for Britain, probably but not necessarily acting together with the United States or other countries, to invade Libya and seize control of the oil fields, probably establishing a permanent protectorate over the oil regions, the pipelines, and the coast.³¹ This remains the goal today.

Timed to coincide with the attempt to assassinate Qaddafi, MI-6 and other Western secret intelligence agencies fomented a considerable insurrection in northeast Libya, almost precisely in the same areas which are in rebellion today. Its insurrection was successfully crushed by Qaddafi’s forces by the end of 1996. The events of 2011 are simply a reprise of the imperialist attack on Libya 15 years ago, with the addition of outside intervention...

The War Against the Nation State

Today’s attack on Libya comes in the context of a broad attack on the institution of the sovereign nation state itself, as it has existed since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The United States and the British are deeply concerned by the large number of nations which are seeking to escape from Anglo-American hegemony by actively pursuing large-scale cooperation with Russia on security, with China on economic questions, and with Iran for geopolitical considerations. The CIA/MI-6 response has been a wild orgy of destabilizations, people power coups, color revolutions, and palace putsches, signaled by the document dumps by the CIA limited hangout operation known as Wikileaks, which has targeted names of the CIA hit mist from Ben Ali to Qaddafi. The Obama strategy would have preferred an exclusive reliance and the illusion that the Arab Spring was really a matter of youthful visionary idealists gathering in the public square to praise democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. This was never the reality: the actual decisions were being made by brutal cliques of generals and top officials bribed or blackmailed by the CIA who were moving behind the scenes to oust such figures as Ben Ali or Mubarak. Whatever else Qaddafi has done, he has undoubtedly forced the CIA and NATO to drop the pleasant mask of youthful idealism and human rights, revealing a hideous visage of Predator drones, terror bombing, widespread slaughter, and colonialist arrogance underneath. Qaddafi has also ripped the mask of “Yes We Can” off Obama, revealing a cynical warmonger intent on the continuation of Bush’s infamous “Dead or Alive” and “Bring it on” policies, although by other means.

A Distant Mirror for Imperialists in Libya: Lucan’s Pharsalia

Modern imperialists eager to rush into Libya should ponder Lucan’s Pharsalia, which treats of warfare in the Libyan desert during the contest between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great at the end of the Roman Republic. A critical passage in this Latin epic is the speech by Cato of Utica, a follower of Pompey, who urges his soldiers to undertake a suicide mission into Libya, saying: “Serpents, thirst, heat, and sand … Libya alone can present a multitude of woes that it would beseem men to fly from.” Cato goes forward, and finds “a little tomb to enclose [his] hallowed name, Libya secured the death of Cato….”³²

Let us not imitate this folly.

Investigative leads from the West Point Study: An Appeal to Scholars

The West Point study, as noted, was conducted on the basis of almost 700 Al Qaeda personnel files captured by coalition forces in Iraq.³³ The authors of the study have promised to keep available online the documentary basis of this investigation, both in the form of the raw Arabic language al Qaeda personnel files³⁴, and also of the same file cards in English translation.³⁵

Assuming that this material remains available, it might be possible for researchers and reporters, and especially those with capabilities in Arabic not possessed by the present writer, to investigate the Libyan fighters who went into Iraq with a view to determining whether any of them are family members, neighbors, or even political associates of the known members of the Benghazi rebel council or of other anti-Qaddafi forces. Such a procedure could contribute to allowing the European and American public as well as others around the world to better understand the nature of the military adventure currently unfolding in Libya by gaining a more specific knowledge of who the Libyan rebels actually are, as distinct from the hollow panegyrics purveyed by the controlled Western media.

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References:

¹ Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, “Al Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighter in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records,” (West Point, NY: Harmony Project, Combating Terrorism Center, Department of Social Sciences, US Military Academy, December 2007). Cited as West Point Study.
² Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, “Al Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighter in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records,” (West Point, NY: Harmony Project, Combating Terrorism Center, Department of Social Sciences, US Military Academy, December 2007). Cited as West Point Study.
³ West Point Study, pp. 8-9.
⁴ Daya Gamage, “Libyan rebellion has radical Islamist fervor: Benghazi link to Islamic militancy, U.S. Military Document Reveals,” Asian Tribune, March 17, 2011, at http://www.asiantribune.com/news/201...itancyus-milit
⁵ West Point Study, p. 12.
⁶ West Point Study, p. 19.
⁷ West Point Study, p. 27.
⁸ West Point Study, p. 9.
⁹ http://english.aljazeera.net/news/af...740131239.html; http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English...1.0.2055009989;
¹⁰ West Point Study, p. 12.
¹¹ West Point Study, p. 27.
¹² West Point Study, p. 29.
¹³ West Point Study, p. 28.
¹⁴ See “Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels, Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2011, at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...835270906.html; see also Robert Fisk, “America’s secret plan to arm Libya’s rebels,” Independent, Mach 7, 2011, at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...s-2234227.html
¹⁵ Gamage.
¹⁶ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12741414
¹⁷ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Abdul_Jalil
¹⁸ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Abdul_Jalil
¹⁹ Stratfor, “Libya’s Tribal Dyanmics, February 25, 2011, available at http://redstomp.org/forums/showthrea...ribal-Dyanmics
²⁰ Venetia Rainey, “Who are the rebels we are fighting to protect,” The First Post, http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/76660,news-comment,news-politics,who-are-the-rebels-we-are-fighting-to-protect#ixzz1HMRIrUP9
²¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...tional_Council
²² Statement by “Transition National Council,” Benghazi, March 5, 2011 at http://www.libyanmission-un.org/tnc.pdf; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...tional_Council
²³ Massimo Introvigne, “L’occidente alla guerra delle tribù,” La Bussola quotidiana, March 22, 2011, at http://www.cesnur.org/2011/mi-rivolte-05.html
²⁴ Stratfor, “Libya’s Tribal Dyanmics, February 25, 2011, available at http://redstomp.org/forums/showthrea...ribal-Dyanmics
²⁵ Gerald A. Perreira, “Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective,” Black Agenda Report, March 2, 2011, at http://blackagendareport.com/content...an-perspective
²⁶ Webster G. Tarpley, “Obama Campaign Linked To Chechen Terrorism: Grant Of Taxpayer-Funded U.S. Asylum For Chechen Terror Envoy Gave Obama Foreign Policy Guru Zbigniew Brzezinski ‘One Of The Happiest Days Of My Life,’” February 2, 2008, Obama the Postmodern Coup: The Making of a Manchurian Candidate (Joshua Treet CA: Progressive Press, April 2008), pp. 97-115, online at http://tarpley.net/2008/02/03/obama-...hen-terrorism/
²⁷ Paul Cruikshank, “How Muslim extremists are turning on Osama Bin Laden,” New York Daily News, June 8, 2008, at http://www.webcitation.org/query?url...ate=2009-08-05. Cruickshank is a fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security and the co-author, with Peter Bergen, of the … cover story in the New Republic, “The Jihadist Revolt against Bin Laden.”
²⁸ http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...eader_link.php
²⁹ http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...#ixzz1HNoUTmn5
³⁰ http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...#ixzz1HNmzsjat
³¹ See Machon, Annie (2005). Spies, Lies & Whistleblowers. MI5, MI6 and the Shayler Affair. Lewes, East Sussex: The Book Guild Ltd. 185776952X; Hollingsworth, Mark; Nick Fielding (1999). Defending the Realm: MI5 and the Shayler Affair. Andre Deutsch Ltd. ISBN 0233996672; see also Guardian, April 10, 2000 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/ap...rdnortontaylor
³² Lucan, Pharsalia, Book IX, trans Riley (London: Bell, 1903), p. 355.
³³ http://www.ctc.usma.edu/harmony/pdf/...r.19.Dec07.pdf
³⁴ http://www.ctc.usma.edu/harmony/Fore..._Bios-Orig.pdf
³⁵ http://www.ctc.usma.edu/harmony/FF-Bios-Trans.pdf