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Kony campaign won't help Uganda

Sunday, March 11, 2012 By Tony Iltis

invisible-children-kony-2012-do-your-own-research.jpg

Ugandan newspaper the Observer reported on March 2 serious allegations against Ugandan troops in the Central African Republic (CAR), where they have been present since 2007, chasing the remnants of the Ugandan militia, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

The allegations include rape, child prostitution, arms dealing and the plunder of CAR’s timber and diamonds.

Similar allegations have been made concerning the Ugandan army’s (the Ugandan Peoples Defence Force, UPDF) 1997-2003 intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Observer said.

The UPDF and its predecessor, the National Resistance Army (NRA), have also been accused of human rights abuses in Uganda including the use of child soldiers.

See also:

Who is KONY 12 to start a war?

Behind KONY 2012 and Ugandan war criminals

A few days later US “charity” Invisible Children (IC) released the video KONY 2012, which instantly became an internet sensation. IC was established in 2006 by three US filmmakers who had released a documentary the previous year about the atrocities of the LRA and its leader, Joseph Kony.

The video demands its viewers “do something” to bring Kony to the International Criminal Court, which indicted him for war crimes in 2005.

The film states its aim is to support the Ugandan military by supporting US military advisers in the country ― justified by the need to capture Kony, who has not been in Uganda since 2006.

Millions have responded forwarding and retweeting the video and IC’s campaign.

Criticism

Despite its phenomenal success, the film has received criticism. These include the narcissism of the film-makers and the exclusion of African voices beyond a few stereotypical victims ― promoting the colonial myth of noble and competent Westerners saving Black African victims from Black African ogres.

The blatant commercialism of the campaign ― “doing something” meaning buying something overpriced from IC ― has also been criticised, especially given the high wages of the three filmmakers and IC’s enormous expenses (more than a million dollars annually on travel), leaving only 30% of the money they raise going to Africa.

Others have criticised the film’s lack of context and inaccuracies. One of these is not making it clear the LRA have not operated in Uganda since 2006 when they were driven out in a US-supported UPDF offensive.

The film shows Kony with thousands of child soldiers behind him, but the LRA is now a remnant, with an estimated 200 remaining fighters.

Furthermore, the focus on a single warlord takes the focus off the many other perpetrators of violence in one of the world’s most violent regions.

This “dumbing down” of the message is more than just patronising to viewers. Most of the millions of people viewing and forwarding the video would be shocked to learn the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s government and military, who IC demand are given more arms to “get Kony”, are responsible for the same sort of atrocities as the LRA.

US intervention

The IC and KONY 2012 explicitly support US military intervention.

When US President Barack Obama announced in October that the US had deployed 100 troops in Uganda, IC were quick to take the credit. It described it as “a huge victory for the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who have been lobbying Washington to take action”.

US military policy is generally not determined by the moral outrage of “thousands of young Americans”. In 2003, millions of people, in the US and around the world, took to the streets fuelled by moral outrage to oppose the invasion of Iraq ― which the US carried out regardless.

The war in Afghanistan is also deeply unpopular in the countries with soldiers helping occupy the country. Yet it continues.

The reality is that a permanent military presence in the Great Lakes region of Africa has been a US policy goal for many years.

The viral spread of KONY 2012 has been aided by prominent and supportive coverage in the mainstream media, celebrity endorsement and bipartisan support from US politicians. The reality is that IC are working to influence young people in the US and other Western countries on behalf of Washington’s war planners, not the other way round.

KONY 2012 portrays the LRA as if it came from nowhere.

In the 1970s, Uganda was ruled by Idi Amin, a tyrant whose regime killed at least 100,000 people. Amin came to power in an Israeli-backed military coup, but switched allegience to the Gadaffi regime in Libya.

This, along with his personal brutality and eccentricities, made Amin the West's archetype of a psychotic post-colonial dictator.

Having alienated the entire Ugandan political spectrum and launched irrational aggressions against neighbouring countries, Amin was overthrown in 1979 by invading Tanzanian troops and a broad coalition of Ugandan opponents.

Uganda’s nightmare continued, however, as the coalition fractured along ethnic rather than political lines.

DRC killings

Between 1979 and 1986, 500,000 Ugandans were killed in what became known as the Bush War. In January 1986, Museveni’s NRA took the capital, Kampala. Museveni’s predecessor, Tito Okello was from the Acholi ethnic group from the north, who had been particularly persecuted under Amin.

The invasion of Acholiland and crushing of pro-Okello forces was particularly brutal, even by the standards of the Bush War. The dislocation and resentment this caused led to an armed religious millienarian movement, the Holy Spirit Movement. This was crushed, spawning a number of smaller more violent, armed religious cults.

One was Kony’s LRA.

The LRA’s brutality alienated the support it initially had in Acholiland, but it retained its influence through terror.

The focus of IC’s propaganda, as its name suggests, is on child soldiers. However, it was Museveni’s NRA that was the first armed group in Uganda to make widespread use of child soldiers. The December 15, 2002 British Sunday Times carried an interview with China Keitetsi who joined the NRA in 1984, when she was eight-years-old.

Describing a massacre she took part in, still aged 8, she said: “When we got back to our camp, the prisoners were ordered to dig their own graves and some of our officers told us to spit in their eyes. The enemy was told that no bullets would be wasted on them … They were hit on their foreheads and on the back of their heads [with hoes] until they dropped into the graves and died.”

Before the invasion of Acholiland the NRA had a better reputation than other armed groups with regard to treatment of civilians. However, this created more suffering for the child soldiers. Keitetsi explained: “Museveni wanted us to be different from the government soldiers. If we were caught taking money, we were shot. If we stole food, we were shot ...

“I had to shoot my own friends, for stealing a sweet potato or cassava. That would be the last you saw of your friend, six bullets going into their bodies.”

Keitetsi eventually left the army and fled Uganda because of sexual abuse. She was 12 when she first had to sleep with a much older male soldier.

“It was not once. It was every night. It was an order. It was a duty you had to fulfil. I couldn’t say no.”

Despite having previously professed Marxism, upon taking power Museveni adopted neoliberalism and allied with the US. He has, with US support, become a regional power.

Between 1997 and 2003, Ugandan troops took part in the devastating war in the DRC.

On October 1, 2010, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report in which Uganda and its Congolese proxies (who made extensive use of child soldiers) were accused of mass rape, targeted killings of civilians and other crimes against humanity.

IC has repeatedly pointed out that the LRA has killed tens of thousands. But their opponents killed millions in the DRC.

Ugandan soldiers are no longer directly involved, but the war in the DRC continues. Rival militias backed by either Uganda, Rwanda or the DRC’s weak government fight over the ability to use forced labour to mine minerals such as coltan.

The Congo War coincided with boom in demand for these minerals because of their use in consumer electronics such as mobile phones and personal computers. Most Congolese coltan is exported, by way of Rwanda or Uganda, to the US.

One of several aspects of the KONY 2012 video that has outraged Ugandan commentators is it implies the LRA are still active in Uganda. Even the Ugandan government, which stands to benefit from IC’s campaign, has criticised this aspect.

Africom

The US military deployment is clearly not mainly to fight the LRA.

One factor is the recent discovery of oil in Uganda. Also, the focus on working with the UPDF is due to its growing role as a US regional proxy.

Since 2009, Ugandan troops have tried to impose a US-friendly order on Somalia, something not achieved by Ethiopian troops who invaded in December 2006 or a 1992-95 intervention by a US-led multinational force.

More generally, the US is looking for an African nation willing to host the US military command for Africa (AFRICOM), which since its establishment in 2008 has been based in Germany.

Competition for Africa’s resources with China (and to a lesser extent European powers such as France) is behind the US military interest in Africa.

However, fighting al Qaeda, and now the LRA, make more palatable public justifications.

Ugandan blogger Drew Ddembe wrote on March 8: “Today I have listened to lots of questions by really ignorant people! Just because they watched some 5 year old say Kony was a bad guy who made him sad, they believe they now know all about Uganda!

“Kind of like all those people who try to tell you they know all about Uganda ― because they watched the Last king of Scotland.”

Ddembe said: “This is activism pornography at its best! … Ugandans need to move on with their lives … not this time wasting white messianic crap!

“People need help to get back onto their feet. To fight poverty. To access quality healthcare. America sent 100 US troops into the region not to fight or look for Kony but to safeguard its interests in the regions resources. Lets not delude ourselves!”

Read more of Tony Iltis's articles.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/50312

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In 'The Wizard of the Nile' [Pub. Portobello] Matthew Green describes his attempts to track down, and interview, Joseph Kony. He describes the ethnic conflicts that produced the Lord's Resistance Army, and the policies of Ugandan and British governments that stirred up the conflicts in the first place. He also describes Kony's early influences and the havoc he wrought in Northern Uganda, giving in effect a guided tour of the ruins. But it's as though he is writing Ancient History – Kony and his followers had long since left for the Sudan (including what later became South Sudan), the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And this was written in 2008.

I haven't watched “Kony 2012” and don't intend to. On the other hand, if this “utube sensation” brings about a little more knowledge in the rest of the world concerning this part of Africa I don't think the criticism of the film needs to be quite so loud. (There are, incidentally, a number of charities working among children in Northern Uganda which do good work.)

As “Kony 2012” went viral, commentators in Uganda became unhappy at the representation of their country: http://allafrica.com/stories/201203080907.html

The Ugandan government has now issued its own statement on the subject: http://allafrica.com/stories/201203120172.html

The combination of African troops and Western advisers might eventually work, as it has to a limited extent in Somalia. Meanwhile perhaps “Kony 2012” will prove to be useful in encouraging more scrutiny of both the Ugandan Army and their American colleagues.

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There's a good discussion about the Kony-film-phenomenon on this 'Guardian' podcast http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/audio/2012/apr/20/kony2012-right-solutions-global-development-podcast More importantly, there is, on the same podcast and elsewhere in 'The Guardian', some very good analysis of the Kony phenomenon, a rather different and more important issue.

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There's a good discussion about the Kony-film-phenomenon on this 'Guardian' podcast http://www.guardian....lopment-podcast More importantly, there is, on the same podcast and elsewhere in 'The Guardian', some very good analysis of the Kony phenomenon, a rather different and more important issue.

Indeed.

I think it is right to focus on events in Africa. They can be so indicative of events elsewhere Particularly with neo-colonialism in mind. (which, strangely enough) lead back to the Congo when JFK was around and further back too.

At the moment there seems to be a lot going on and scant reports from which to gat a wholistic picture of the flow of events. Unfortunately Imperial History is like that. Just dates, and more dates, and much shredded.

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Interesting, William.

I'm not sure what you are expecting here. Do you wish me to cast aspersions on you personally too? If so, you are wasting your time.

I really don't know why the US of A is so hell bent on self destruction. I do suspect it's for short term economic reasons to the detriment not only of the world ''outside'' but also ultimately to decent folk in the US itself. I think that should be of concern to you as it is to much of the world that does NOT regard the US as a credible power.

Your contributions to this topic about African Unity are contradictory in parts. Overall, the tone is not contributory to a decent discussion on these matters.

I'm sure you can do better. (I have seen it happen before).

You say you want self-determination for Libya - does that mean that it was okay for Gadhafi to kill his own people because they'll all Libyans, and let them figure out how to conduct themselves in private, without outside interference?

That's what Russia wants in Syria, but they are the outside interference who is supplying the tyrant and his army with artillery.

As far as I'm concerned, it isn't very complex, either you are for the tyrants or you are against them, and I am very proud of the USA for discarding their decades old policy of supporting any dictator as long as they were against Commies and terrorists.

The Arab Spring - series of Democratic Revolutions in the Arab world is still underway, in Libya and Syria and Bahrain and elsewhere, and will not stop until the tyrants are gone.

You want to bash America and the CIA for instigating it, and while I don't believe that's true, it would have been something if they did.

BK

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AS POSTED 30 minutes ago, Bill Kelly on the sidelines cheering for human hell on earth (COMING SOON TO SYRIA)

=====================================================================

Former Libyan Prime Minister 'tortured'‎

WA today - 28 minutes ago

Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi: extradited to Tripoli from Tunisia. ... Spokesman Nassar al-Manaa said: ''Al-Bagdadi al-Mahmoudi is in good health and he is in need ...

Baghdadi Mahmoudi Faces Torture and Death in Libya

June 2nd, 2012

http://www.thepeople...orture-and-deat

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Amnesty finds widespread use of torture by Libyan militias | World ...www.guardian.co.uk › News › World news › LibyaCached

Feb 16, 2012 – Hundreds of armed militias operating independently of central authorities, according to report by human rights group.

Torture in Libya: The ugly reality of imperialist “liberation”wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/pers-f01.shtmlCached

==================

Feb 1, 2012 – The multiple reports of torture in the detention centers run by the new imperialist-backed Libyan regime and NATO's “rebels” give the lie to all ...

Libyan diplomat dies after torture: rights group | Reuterswww.reuters.com/.../02/.../us-libya-torture-idUSTRE8120N9201202...Cached

==================

Feb 3, 2012 – TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A Libyan diplomat who served as ambassador to France for Muammar Gaddafi died from torture within a day of being ...

'Tortured' Libyan wants answers from Blair - Telegraphwww.telegraph.co.uk › News ›

==================

Apr 11, 2012 – A Libyan military commander who is suing the British Government over its alleged complicity in his rendition and torture has demanded ...

MSF withdraws staff over Libya torture cases - Telegraphwww.telegraph.co.uk › ... › Africa and Indian Ocean ›

==================

Jan 26, 2012 – Medicins San Frontieres pulled its staff out of detention facilities in a Libyan city yesterday after witnessing more than 100 cases of torture ...

Amnesty accuses Libyan militias of unbridled torture - World - CBC ...www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/02/.../libya-torture-amnesty.html

==================

Armed militia groups in Libya have turned on one another and now rule most of the country, torturing their opponents with impunity, Amnesty ...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Libya teeters on edge of civil war

by Konstantin Garibov 1/27/12

#################################

-"There have been clashes between Arabs and Berbers and between other tribes on ethnic grounds. It’s also important that the so-called fighters for freedom and democracy came to power in Libya with the help of NATO, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and France which supplied planes or special task forces. For Libyans, the National Transitional Council is not legitimate."

-"There has been no revolution in Libya. The western media have made it all up. From the very outset, it was clear that whoever would come to power after Gaddafi would be unable to rule the country or maintain its territorial integrity. Many Arabic scholars foresaw a split and it came sooner than expected. The reality is that Libya has entered a civil war."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay and the UN Libya envoy Ian Martin have expressed concern over the situation in Libya where they say the new authorities have failed to assert full authority and instill order.

The recent clashes between pro-Gaddafi supporters and NTC forces were provoked by both parties, Ian Martin said. Until recently, the interim authorities managed to handle these kinds of incidents fairly well but they might happen again in the future, the UN human rights commissioner said.

On Monday armed units of pro-Gaddafi supporters seized Bani Walid where the elders had passed a no-confidence motion against the central government. Sweeping violence also gripped Benghazi and Tripoli. Bani Walid returned under the control of the Libyan government by Wednesday.

The attacks by pro-Gaddafi forces are taking place amid the acute crisis that has hit the NTC and Libya as a whole. Alexei Podtserob of the Institute of Oriental Studies, comments.

"There have been clashes between Arabs and Berbers and between other tribes on ethnic grounds. It’s also important that the so-called fighters for freedom and democracy came to power in Libya with the help of NATO, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and France which supplied planes or special task forces. For Libyans, the National Transitional Council is not legitimate."

The revolutionaries are disgruntled at the absence of transparency in the government’s work, its failure to pay compensations promised and the presence of former Gaddafi functionaries in the current leadership. For this reason, many experts believe that the NTC is incapable of taking the situation under control. Andrei Volodin of the Center for Oriental Research at the Russian Foreign Ministry, has this to say.

"There has been no revolution in Libya. The western media have made it all up. From the very outset, it was clear that whoever would come to power after Gaddafi would be unable to rule the country or maintain its territorial integrity. Many Arabic scholars foresaw a split and it came sooner than expected. The reality is that Libya has entered a civil war."

The so-called Arab Spring revolutions naturally spill into full-scale civil wars, Yevgeny Satanovsky of the Institute of the Middle East says. Given this, the new regimes are unlikely to see stability in the near future. According to Satanovsky, the current turmoil in Libya has the potential to wreak havoc across North Africa, and the unrest in Yemen may plunge the whole of the Arabian Peninsula into chaos.

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Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:

http://groups.yahoo....opnato/messages

Stop NATO website and articles:

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com

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Destroying a Country's Standard of Living: What Libya Had Achieved, What has been Destroyed

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky 9/20/11

################################################

"There is no tomorrow" under a NATO sponsored Al Qaeda rebellion.

While a "pro-democracy" rebel government has been instated, the country has been destroyed.

Against the backdrop of war propaganda, Libya's economic and social achievements over the last thirty years, have been brutally reversed:

The [Libyan Arab Jamahiriya] has had a high standard of living and a robust per capita daily caloric intake of 3144. The country has made strides in public health and, since 1980, child mortality rates have dropped from 70 per thousand live births to 19 in 2009. Life expectancy has risen from 61 to 74 years of age during the same span of years. (FAO, Rome, Libya, Country Profile,)

According to sectors of the "Progressive Left" which have endorsed NATO's R2P mandate: "The mood across Libya, particularly in Tripoli, is absolutely —like there’s just a feeling of euphoria everywhere. People are incredibly excited about starting afresh. There’s a real sense of rebirth, a feeling that their lives are starting anew. (DemocracyNow.org, September 14, 2011 emphasis added)

The rebels are casually presented as "liberators". The central role of Al Qaeda affilated terrorists within rebel ranks is not mentioned.

"Starting afresh" in the wake of destruction? Fear and Social Despair, Countless Deaths and Atrocities, amply documented by the independent media.

No euphoria.... A historical reversal in the country's economic and social development has occurred. The achievements have been erased.

The NATO invasion and occupation marks the ruinous "rebirth" of Libya's standard of living That is the forbidden and unspoken truth: an entire Nation has been destabilized and destroyed, its people driven into abysmal poverty.

The objective of the NATO bombings from the outset was to destroy the country's standard of living, its health infrastructure, its schools and hospitals, its water distribution system.

And then "rebuild" with the help of donors and creditors under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank.

The diktats of the "free market" are a precondition for the instatement of a Western style "democratic dictatorship ".

About nine thousand strike sorties, tens of thousands of strikes on civilian targets including residential areas, government buildings, water supply and electricity generation facilities. (See NATO Communique, September 5, 2011. 8140 strike sorties from March 31 to September 5, 2011)

An entire nation has been bombed with the most advanced ordnance, including uranium coated ammunition.

Already in August, UNICEF warned that extensive NATO bombing of Libya's water infrastructure "could turn into an unprecedented health epidemic “ (Christian Balslev-Olesen of UNICEF's Libya Office, August 2011).

Meanwhile investors and donors have positioned themselves. "War is Good for Business'. NATO, the Pentagon and the Washington based international financial institutions (IFIs) operate in close coordination. What has been destroyed by NATO will be rebuilt, financed by Libya's external creditors under the helm of the "Washington Consensus":

"Specifically, the [World] Bank has been asked to examine the need for repair and restoration of services in the water, energy and transport sectors [bombed by NATO] and, in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, to support budget preparation [austerity measures] and help the banking sector back on to its feet [The Libyan Central bank was one of the first government buildings to be bombed]. Employment generation for young Libyans has been added as an urgent need facing the country." (World Bank to Help Libya Rebuild and Deliver Essential Services to Citizens emphasis added)

Libya's Development Achievements

Whatever one's views regarding Moamar Gadaffi, the post-colonial Libyan government played a key role in eliminating poverty and developing the country's health and educational infrastructure. According to Italian Journalist Yvonne de Vito, "Differently from other countries that went through a revolution – Libya is considered to be the Switzerland of the African continent and is very rich and schools are free for the people. Hospitals are free for the people. And the conditions for women are much better than in other Arab countries." (Russia Today, August 25, 2011)

These developments are in sharp contrast to what most Third World countries were able to "achieve" under Western style "democracy" and "governance" in the context of a standard IMF-World Bank Structural Adjustment program (SAP).

Public Health Care

Public Health Care in Libya prior to NATO's "Humanitarian Intervention" was the best in Africa. "Health care is [was] available to all citizens free of charge by the public sector. The country boasts the highest literacy and educational enrolment rates in North Africa. The Government is [was] substantially increasing the development budget for health services.... (WHO Libya Country Brief )

Confirmed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), undernourishment was less than 5 %, with a daily per capita calorie intake of 3144 calories. (FAO caloric intake figures indicate availability rather than consumption).

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya provided to its citizens what is denied to many Americans: Free public health care, free education, as confirmed by WHO and UNESCO data.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO): Life expectancy at birth was 72.3 years (2009), among the highest in the developing World.

Under 5 mortality rate per 1000 live births declined from 71 in 1991 to 14 in 2009

(http://www.who.int/c...rief_lby_en.pdf)

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya General information 2009

Total population (000) 6 420

Annual population growth rate (%) ^ 2.0

Population 0-14 years (%) 28

Rural population (%) ^ 22

Total fertility rate (births per woman) ^ 2.6

Infant mortality rate (0/00) ^ 17

Life expectancy at birth (years) ^ 75

GDP per capita (PPP) US$ ^ 16 502

GDP growth rate (%) ^ 2.1

Total debt service as a % of GNI ^ ...

Children of primary school-age who are out of school (%) (1978) 2

Source: UNESCO. Libya Country Profile

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (2009)

Total life expectancy at birth (years) 72.3

Male life expectancy at birth (years) 70.2

Female life expectancy at birth (years) 74.9

Newborns with low birth weight (%) 4.0

Children underweight (%) 4.8

Perinatal mortality rate per 1000 total births 19

Neonatal mortality rate 11.0

Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 14.0

Under five mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 20.1

Maternal mortality ratio (per 10000 live births) 23

Source WHO http://www.emro.who....x.aspx?Ctry=liy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Education

The adult literacy rate was of the order of 89%, (2009), (94% for males and 83% for females). 99.9% of youth are literate (UNESCO 2009 figures, See UNESCO, Libya Country Report)

Gross primary school enrolment ratio was 97% for boys and 97% for girls (2009) .

(see UNESCO tables at http://stats.uis.une...BR_Region=40525

The pupil teacher ratio in Libya's primary schools was of the order of 17 (1983 UNESCO data), 74% of school children graduating from primary school were enrolled in secondary school (1983 UNESCO data).

Based on more recent date, which confirms a marked increase in school enrolment, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in secondary schools was of the order of 108% in 2002. The GER is the number of pupils enrolled in a given level of education regardless of age expressed as a percentage of the population in the theoretical age group for that level of education.

For tertiary enrolment (postsecondary, college and university), the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) was of the order of 54% in 2002 (52 for males, 57 for females).

(For further details see http://stats.uis.une...BR_Region=40525

Women's Rights

With regard to Women's Rights, World Bank data point to significant achievements.

"In a relative short period of time, Libya achieved universal access for primary education, with 98% gross enrollment for secondary, and 46% for tertiary education. In the past decade, girls’ enrollment increased by 12% in all levels of education. In secondary and tertiary education, girls outnumbered boys by 10%." (World Bank Libya Country Brief, emphasis added)

Price Controls over Essential Food Staples

In most developing countries, essential food prices have skyrocketed, as a result of market deregulation, the lifting of price controls and the eliminaiton of subsidies, under "free market" advice from the World Bank and the IMF.

In recent years, essential food and fuel prices have spiralled as a result of speculative trade on the major commodity exchanges.

Libya was one of the few countries in the developing World which maintained a system of price controls over essential food staples.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick acknowledged in an April 2011 statement that the price of essential food staples had increased by 36 percent in the course of the last year. See Robert Zoellick, World Bank

The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had established a system of price controls over essential food staples, which was maintained until the onset of the NATO led war.

While rising food prices in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt spearheaded social unrest and political dissent, the system of food subsidies in Libya was maintained.

These are the facts confirmed by several UN specialised agencies.

"Missile Diplomacy" and "The Free Market"

War and Globalization are intiricately related. The IMF and NATO work in tandem, in liason with the Washington think tanks.

The NATO operation purports to enforce the neoliberal economic agenda. Countries which are reluctant to accept the sugar coated bullets of IMF "economic medicine" will eventually be the object of a R2P NATO humanitarian operation.

Déjà Vu? Under the British Empire, "gun boat diplomacy" was a means to imposing "free trade". On October 5, 1850, England's Envoy to the Kingdom of Siam, Sir James Brooke recommended to Her Majesty's government that:

"should these just demands [to impose free trade] be refused, a force should be present, immediately to enforce them by the rapid destruction of the defenses of the [Chaopaya] river... Siam may be taught the lesson which it has long been tempting-- its Government may be remodelled, A better disposed king placed on the throne and an influence acquired in the country which will make it of immense commercial importance to England" (The Mission of Sir James Brooke, quoted in M.L. Manich Jumsai, King Mongkut and Sir John Bowring, Chalermit, Bangkok, 1970, p. 23)

Today we call it "Regime Change" and "Missile Diplomacy" which invariably takes the shape of a UN sponsored "No Fly Zone". Its objective is to impose the IMF's deadly "economic medicine" of austerity measures and privatization.

The World Bank financed "reconstruction" programs of war torn countries are coordinated with US-NATO military planning. They are invariably formulated prior to onslaught of the military campaign...

Confiscating Libyan Financial Assets

Libya`s frozen overseas financial assets are estimated to be of the order of $150 billion, with NATO countries holding more than $100 billion.

Prior to the war, Libya had no debts. In fact quite the opposite. It was a creditor nation investing in neighboring African countries.

The R2P military intervention is intended to spearhead the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya into the straightjacket of an indebted developing country, under the surveillance of the Washington based Bretton Woods institutions.

In a bitter irony, after having stolen Libya's oil wealth and confiscated its overseas financial assets, the "donor community" has pledged to lend the (stolen) money back to finance Libya's post-war "reconstruction". Libya is slated to join the ranks of indebted African countries which have driven into poverty by IMF and the World Bank since the onsalught of the debt crisis in the early 1980s:

The IMF promised a further $35-billion in funding [loans] to countries affected by Arab Spring uprisings and formally recognized Libya’s ruling interim council as a legitimate power, opening up access to a myriad of international lenders as the country [Libya] looks to rebuild after a six-month war. ...

Getting IMF recognition is significant for Libya’s interim leaders as it means international development banks and donors such as the World Bank can now offer financing.

The Marseille talks came a few days after world leaders agreed in Paris to free up billions of dollars in frozen assets [stolen money] to help [through loans] Libya’s interim rulers restore vital services and rebuild after a conflict that ended a 42-year dictatorship.

The financing deal by the Group of Seven major economies plus Russia is aimed at supporting reform efforts [iMF sponsored structural adjustment] in the wake of uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

The financing is mostly in the form of loans, rather than outright grants, and is provided half by G8 and Arab countries and half by various lenders and development banks. (Financial Post, September 10, 2011,)

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BILL Ive told you again,again,again and again....its about western control of resources and national slavery to imposed DEBT. BILL YOU ARE PRO SLAVERY by supporting false liberation in said Arab-Spring. Its real name should be BANKERS SPRING

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see http://www.rt.com/ne...unisia-mackell

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amen, Stephen.

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Steven : BILL Ive told you again,again,again and again....its about western control of resources

BK: I don't doubt oil has something to do with Libya, but the US Oil companies already had Gadhafi in their back pocket and did not want to lose what they already had. As for Egypt, tourism is the primary industry and that's why they won't let the Islamists install their laws - and the Muslim Brothers have accepted this as fait accompli. And since you provided a link to make your point I have posted your link to the report of the IMF bankrolling Egypt, but that fails to note that the USA bankrolls and trains the Egyptian military, the real rulers of Egypt.

and national slavery to imposed DEBT.

BILL YOU ARE PRO SLAVERY by supporting false liberation in said Arab-Spring.

BK: How I am I promoting slavery by supporting Arab Spring - that's your misreading the situation, not mine, as the people of Tunisia now consider themselves liberated, and have had an election, Egyptians feel liberated and only feel supressed by US supported military government, Syria's Assad family is showing how serious they are about their ownership of Syria, tell the families of those thousands who have died ousting these psyco manic tyrants that their cause is a false one. The USA Navy was first established in 1804 to fight these same Tripoli, Damacus tyrants and pirates who were enslaving Americans. If you support the police states dominated by dictators then you are the one who is supporting slavery.

Its real name should be BANKERS SPRING

BK: I have yet to see any rational argument that people with the wealth or industry might are making any money from the region wide revolutions as the bankers have always been reactionary and sought stability and never supported revolution. You are the one who has, what Cas Sunstein calls "faulty epistomology," and can't change your opinions or ideals when confronted with the facts or the truth.

John Dolva: amen, Stephen

BK: Amen, Amen John Dolva, whose blind hatred for Americans and the military leads him to support the military murderers its of Egypt, Libya and Syria. And at least I read Steven and John Dolva's arguments and acutally went to this link to see what it says, thinking that there would be one thing there that would convince me that I was wrong after all, and Steven and John are right and that we'd all be better off if we'd just let these petty dictators run the world and not just their little feifdoms.

Russ Baker also recently posted on this topic and is equally off base, and I try to set him right too:

Revolutionary Program: Why Russ Baker's Wrong on Arab Spring & Media

And the below analysis, which Stehen sought to support his point that the Arab Spring revolutions are a sham, says that because there was strong economic growth in Libya and Syria before the revolutions they should have left the tyrants in power, as if economic growth is the indicator of how much tyranny can be accepted, as long as everyone is improving economically. BS

---------------------

see http://www.rt.com/ne...unisia-mackell

Egypt's interim government has accepted a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to help relaunch the country's economy. However, such loans may not be for the good of the Egyptian people, believes financial journalist Austin Mackell.

In one of his articles Mackell says that "the IMF is depicted as the rich uncle saving wayward children, but the proposed loans for Egypt and Tunisia could be devastating."

The IMF repeatedly came under criticism for praising autocratic North African governments, and now that they are toppling, the IMF is giving money to the other side.

“It’s likely that the loans will have the same conditions attached to them that the previous IMF loans to Egypt and Tunisia had, which meant massive cuts to the public sector and privatizations,” said Mackell in an interview to RT.

Mackell believes that creating a business-friendly environment is one of the aims of the IMF.

“What that normally means is an environment that’s unfriendly to the rights of local workers and to small businesses in the economy”.

Both in Tunisia and in Egypt the IMF has signed loan agreements with the transitional governments, which, as Mackell pointed out, are primarily composed of figures of the old regime.

Therefore, only a small elite – which was doing well under the old governments as well – will benefit from the loans, along with the international banks. The money is likely to stay in “the pockets of the fat cats,” and the economic growth will not affect common people that much.

“There was actually strong growth in Egypt and Tunisia for the last decade or so before the revolutions, which, of course, the IMF and the World Bank praised, but this was jobless growth, it didn’t help people on the ground,” Mackell told RT.

Stephen Lendman, radio host and blogger, believes that accepting an IMF loan can really get a country into big trouble.

“An IMF loan comes with very, very dangerous strains,” he said. “The reason that people in Greece and people in Spain are protesting in the streets against these neo-liberal policies that come with IMF loans is it literally hands the sovereignty of these governments over to Western bankers so they can strip countries of their assets, of their material wealth, to exploit their people. The more money these countries take from the IMF, the worse trouble they get in.”

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/jul/02/rift-valley-pastoralists-arms-treaty

''...there is a small block of 20 or so other nations beginning to agitate openly and hustle privately, for a diplomatic fudge that would allow these countries, and their politically powerful arms manufacturers, more wriggle room. They include the unlikely coalition of the US, Russia and China.

The foot-draggers will be pressed hard by the countries most affected by the illegal sale of arms, with the vast majority of countries in Africa, including Kenya. Kenya has special significance in this process. It was in Nairobi in 2002 that 100 of the world's NGOs agreed to co-ordinate an international push for an ATT, and Nairobi will send one of the biggest delegations to New York this month. It has suffered greatly over the past 20 years, as small arms and ammunition have been smuggled into the country across its porous border.

At first the weapons came in from Uganda; now it is through South Sudan and Somalia...''

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  • 2 weeks later...

Typical NYT Propaganda

Three Cups of Tea – By Greg Mortenson

Central Asia Institute 74 schools

It Takes a School, Not Missiles

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, OP-ED COLUMNIST

Published: July 13, 2008

New York Times

Since 9/11, Westerners have tried two approaches to fight terrorism in Pakistan, President Bush’s and Greg Mortenson’s.

Mr. Bush has focused on military force and provided more than $10 billion — an extraordinary sum in the foreign-aid world — to the highly unpopular government of President Pervez Musharraf. This approach has failed: the backlash has radicalized Pakistan’s tribal areas so that they now nurture terrorists in ways that they never did before 9/11.

Mr. Mortenson, a frumpy, genial man from Montana, takes a diametrically opposite approach, and he has spent less than one-ten-thousandth as much as the Bush administration. He builds schools in isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, working closely with Muslim clerics and even praying with them at times.

The only thing that Mr. Mortenson blows up are boulders that fall onto remote roads and block access to his schools.

Mr. Mortenson has become a legend in the region, his picture sometimes dangling like a talisman from rearview mirrors, and his work has struck a chord in America as well. His superb book about his schools, “Three Cups of Tea,” came out in 2006 and initially wasn’t reviewed by most major newspapers. Yet propelled by word of mouth, the book became a publishing sensation: it has spent the last 74 weeks on the paperback best-seller list, regularly in the No. 1 spot.

Now Mr. Mortenson is fending off several dozen film offers. “My concern is that a movie might endanger the well-being of our students,” he explains.

Mr. Mortenson found his calling in 1993 after he failed in an attempt to climb K2, a Himalayan peak, and stumbled weakly into a poor Muslim village. The peasants nursed him back to health, and he promised to repay them by building the village a school.

Scrounging the money was a nightmare — his 580 fund-raising letters to prominent people generated one check, from Tom Brokaw — and Mr. Mortenson ended up selling his beloved climbing equipment and car. But when the school was built, he kept going. Now his aid group, the Central Asia Institute, has 74 schools in operation. His focus is educating girls.

To get a school, villagers must provide the land and the labor to assure a local “buy-in,” and so far the Taliban have not bothered his schools. One anti-American mob rampaged through Baharak, Afghanistan, attacking aid groups — but stopped at the school that local people had just built with Mr. Mortenson. “This is our school,” the mob leaders decided, and they left it intact.

Mr. Mortenson has had setbacks, including being kidnapped for eight days in Pakistan’s wild Waziristan region. It would be naïve to think that a few dozen schools will turn the tide in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Still, he notes that the Taliban recruits the poor and illiterate, and he also argues that when women are educated they are more likely to restrain their sons. Five of his teachers are former Taliban, and he says it was their mothers who persuaded them to leave the Taliban; that is one reason he is passionate about educating girls.

So I have this fantasy: Suppose that the United States focused less on blowing things up in Pakistan’s tribal areas and more on working through local aid groups to build schools, simultaneously cutting tariffs on Pakistani and Afghan manufactured exports. There would be no immediate payback, but a better-educated and more economically vibrant Pakistan would probably be more resistant to extremism.

“Schools are a much more effective bang for the buck than missiles or chasing some Taliban around the country,” says Mr. Mortenson, who is an Army veteran.

Each Tomahawk missile that the United States fires in Afghanistan costs at least $500,000. That’s enough for local aid groups to build more than 20 schools, and in the long run those schools probably do more to destroy the Taliban.

The Pentagon, which has a much better appreciation for the limits of military power than the Bush administration as a whole, placed large orders for “Three Cups of Tea” and invited Mr. Mortenson to speak.

“I am convinced that the long-term solution to terrorism in general, and Afghanistan specifically, is education,” Lt. Col. Christopher Kolenda, who works on the Afghan front lines, said in an e-mail in which he raved about Mr. Mortenson’s work. “The conflict here will not be won with bombs but with books. ... The thirst for education here is palpable.”

Military force is essential in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban. But over time, in Pakistan and Afghanistan alike, the best tonic against militant fundamentalism will be education and economic opportunity.

So a lone Montanan staying at the cheapest guest houses has done more to advance U.S. interests in the region than the entire military and foreign policy apparatus of the Bush administration.

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Steven : BILL Ive told you again,again,again and again....its about western control of resources

BK: I don't doubt oil has something to do with Libya, but the US Oil companies already had Gadhafi in their back pocket and did not want to lose what they already had. As for Egypt, tourism is the primary industry and that's why they won't let the Islamists install their laws - and the Muslim Brothers have accepted this as fait accompli. And since you provided a link to make your point I have posted your link to the report of the IMF bankrolling Egypt, but that fails to note that the USA bankrolls and trains the Egyptian military, the real rulers of Egypt.

and national slavery to imposed DEBT.

BILL YOU ARE PRO SLAVERY by supporting false liberation in said Arab-Spring.

BK: How I am I promoting slavery by supporting Arab Spring - that's your misreading the situation, not mine, as the people of Tunisia now consider themselves liberated, and have had an election, Egyptians feel liberated and only feel supressed by US supported military government, Syria's Assad family is showing how serious they are about their ownership of Syria, tell the families of those thousands who have died ousting these psyco manic tyrants that their cause is a false one. The USA Navy was first established in 1804 to fight these same Tripoli, Damacus tyrants and pirates who were enslaving Americans. If you support the police states dominated by dictators then you are the one who is supporting slavery.

Its real name should be BANKERS SPRING

BK: I have yet to see any rational argument that people with the wealth or industry might are making any money from the region wide revolutions as the bankers have always been reactionary and sought stability and never supported revolution. You are the one who has, what Cas Sunstein calls "faulty epistomology," and can't change your opinions or ideals when confronted with the facts or the truth.

John Dolva: amen, Stephen

BK: Amen, Amen John Dolva, whose blind hatred for Americans and the military leads him to support the military murderers its of Egypt, Libya and Syria. And at least I read Steven and John Dolva's arguments and acutally went to this link to see what it says, thinking that there would be one thing there that would convince me that I was wrong after all, and Steven and John are right and that we'd all be better off if we'd just let these petty dictators run the world and not just their little feifdoms.

Russ Baker also recently posted on this topic and is equally off base, and I try to set him right too:

Revolutionary Program: Why Russ Baker's Wrong on Arab Spring & Media

And the below analysis, which Stehen sought to support his point that the Arab Spring revolutions are a sham, says that because there was strong economic growth in Libya and Syria before the revolutions they should have left the tyrants in power, as if economic growth is the indicator of how much tyranny can be accepted, as long as everyone is improving economically. BS

---------------------

see http://www.rt.com/ne...unisia-mackell

Egypt's interim government has accepted a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to help relaunch the country's economy. However, such loans may not be for the good of the Egyptian people, believes financial journalist Austin Mackell.

In one of his articles Mackell says that "the IMF is depicted as the rich uncle saving wayward children, but the proposed loans for Egypt and Tunisia could be devastating."

The IMF repeatedly came under criticism for praising autocratic North African governments, and now that they are toppling, the IMF is giving money to the other side.

“It’s likely that the loans will have the same conditions attached to them that the previous IMF loans to Egypt and Tunisia had, which meant massive cuts to the public sector and privatizations,” said Mackell in an interview to RT.

Mackell believes that creating a business-friendly environment is one of the aims of the IMF.

“What that normally means is an environment that’s unfriendly to the rights of local workers and to small businesses in the economy”.

Both in Tunisia and in Egypt the IMF has signed loan agreements with the transitional governments, which, as Mackell pointed out, are primarily composed of figures of the old regime.

Therefore, only a small elite – which was doing well under the old governments as well – will benefit from the loans, along with the international banks. The money is likely to stay in “the pockets of the fat cats,” and the economic growth will not affect common people that much.

“There was actually strong growth in Egypt and Tunisia for the last decade or so before the revolutions, which, of course, the IMF and the World Bank praised, but this was jobless growth, it didn’t help people on the ground,” Mackell told RT.

Stephen Lendman, radio host and blogger, believes that accepting an IMF loan can really get a country into big trouble.

“An IMF loan comes with very, very dangerous strains,” he said. “The reason that people in Greece and people in Spain are protesting in the streets against these neo-liberal policies that come with IMF loans is it literally hands the sovereignty of these governments over to Western bankers so they can strip countries of their assets, of their material wealth, to exploit their people. The more money these countries take from the IMF, the worse trouble they get in.”

=====================================

Its real name should be BANKERS SPRING ((GAAL))

BK: I have yet to see any rational argument that people with the wealth or industry might are making any money from the region wide revolutions as the bankers have always been reactionary and sought stability and never supported revolution. You are the one who has, what Cas Sunstein calls "faulty epistomology," and can't change your opinions or ideals when confronted with the facts or the truth.

GEE BILL COLOR BLIND <THIS ALREADY IN MY POST ??????????????

Libya`s frozen overseas financial assets are estimated to be of the order of $150 billion, with NATO countries holding more than $100 billion.

Prior to the war, Libya had no debts. In fact quite the opposite. It was a creditor nation investing in neighboring African countries.

The R2P military intervention is intended to spearhead the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya into the straightjacket of an indebted developing country, under the surveillance of the Washington based Bretton Woods institutions.

In a bitter irony, after having stolen Libya's oil wealth and confiscated its overseas financial assets, the "donor community" has pledged to lend the (stolen) money back to finance Libya's post-war "reconstruction". Libya is slated to join the ranks of indebted African countries which have driven into poverty by IMF and the World Bank since the onsalught of the debt crisis in the early 1980s:

BANKS ARE LOANING BACK LIBY"S OWN MONEY BACK TO THEM AT INTEREST !!!!!!!

++++++++++o+++++++++++++

++++++++++o+++++++++++++

America's Shadow Wars in Africa

Secret Wars, Secret Bases, and the Pentagon’s “New Spice Route”

by Nick Turse

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31892

Here’s an odd question: Is it possible that the U.S. military is present in more countries and more places now than at the height of the Cold War? It’s true that the U.S. is reducing its forces and giant bases in Europe and that its troops are out of Iraq (except for that huge, militarized embassy in Baghdad). On the other hand, there’s that massive ground, air, and naval build-up in the Persian Gulf, the Obama administration’s widely publicized “pivot” to Asia (including troops and ships), those new drone bases in the eastern Indian Ocean region, some movement back into Latin America (including a new base in Chile), and don’t forget Africa, where less than a decade ago, the U.S. had almost no military presence at all. Now, as TomDispatch Associate Editor Nick Turse writes in the latest in his “changing face of empire” series, U.S. special operations forces, regular troops, private contractors, and drones are spreading across the continent with remarkable (if little noticed) rapidity.

===========================o=================================

Kony 2012 and America's Conquest of Africa's Mineral Wealth

by Nile Bowie

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31522

In a 2010 white paper entitled “Critical Raw Materials for the EU,” the European Commission cites the immediate need for reserve supplies of tantalum, cobalt, niobium, and tungsten among others [10]; the US Department of Energy 2010 white paper “Critical Mineral Strategy” also acknowledged the strategic importance of these key components [11]. In 1980, Pentagon experts acknowledged dire shortages of cobalt, titanium, chromium, tantalum, beryllium, and nickel, eluding that rebel insurgencies in the Congo inflated the cost of such materials [12]. Additionally, the US Congressional Budget Office’s 1982 report “Cobalt: Policy Options for a Strategic Mineral” notes that cobalt alloys are critical to the aerospace and weapons industries and that 64% of the world’s cobalt reserves lay in the Katanga Copper Belt, running from southeastern Congo into northern Zambia [13].

During the Congo Wars of the 1996 to 2003, the United States provided training and arms to Tutsi Rwandan and Ugandan militias who later invaded the Congo’s mineral rich eastern provinces to pursue extremist Hutu militias following the Rwandan genocide. Although over six million deaths were attributed to the conflict in the Congo [14], findings of the United Nations suggest that neighboring regimes in Ugandan, Rwanda and Burundi benefitted immensely from illegally harvested conflict minerals, later sold to various multinational corporations for use in consumer goods [15]. The US defense industry relies on high quality metallic alloys indigenous to the region, used primarily in the construction of high-performance jet engines. The sole piece of legislation authored by President Obama during his time as a Senator was S.B. 2125, the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006; Section 201(6) of the bill specifically calls for the protection of natural resources in the troubled regions of eastern Congo [16].

The Congo maintains the second lowest GDP per capita despite having an estimated $24 trillion in untapped raw minerals deposits [17];

###################################################

related

US Agents of Subversion Deride Russian NGO Bill

Disingenuous peddlers of transparency and "open society" choke on their own medicine.

by Tony Cartalucci 7/17/12

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31909

++++++++++++++++++

Bill I thought you were a good guy...but now Bill I see total sellout....a man with no shame. Did you remember a Congo assassination in the JFK era ??? Mass suffering for mineral wars in Africa to come.....Kelly cheers.....gee Bill this is recolonization ...this is debt slavery .....this is Bill Kelly....proslavery. Kelly will sit in luxury with his London international economic friends and sip tea ,created by stolen African wealth. Bill have a spark of honesty and yell ,"hah Boy,MASTER Bill wants more tea !!! " recolonization via debt/spies/NGO assets CASE CLOSED

Edited by Steven Gaal
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"We made other grave errors in the Middle East. We believed that those governments which were friendly to us and hostile to Communists were therefore good governments – and we believed that we could make unpopular policies acceptable through our own propaganda programs." - JFK

John F. Kennedy – From “The Strategy of Peace” Chapter 13. The Middle East

The Middle East today is a monument to Western misunderstanding. During the last eight years the West has ignominiously presided over the liquidation of its power in the whole region, while the U.S.S.R. has gained important footholds. American policy has wavered and wobbled as much, if not more, than any other Western country…

But the main problem was and is understanding the driving forces and central needs of the region as a whole and devising an appropriate farsighted American policy….

Our mistakes in the Middle East, it seems to me, were primarily mistakes of attitude. We tended to deal with this area almost exclusively in the context of the East-West struggle – in terms of our own battle against international Communism. Their own issues of nationalism, of economic development, and local political hostilities were dismissed by our policy-makers as being of secondary importance.

This is not to say that we were necessarily wrong in saying that Communism was their greatest enemy – but we were wrong in believing that we could convince them that it was. We were wrong in believing that what was so clear to us could be made equally compelling to other peoples with problems very different from our own – people with a much lower standard of living, a much greater pride in neutrality and a much more cent history of foreign exploitation. The Arabs knew that their lands had never been occupied by Soviet troops – but they had been occupied by Western troops – and they were not ready to submerge either their nationalism or their neutrality in an alliance with the Western nations.

We made other grave errors in the Middle East. We overestimated our own strength and underestimated the force of nationalism. We failed to perceive when we had lost control of events – and failed to act accordingly once it became clear. We gave our support to regimes instead of to people – and too often we tied our future to the fortunes of unpopular and ultimately overthrown governments and rulers.

We believed that those governments which were friendly to us and hostile to Communists were therefore good governments – and we believed that we could make unpopular policies acceptable through our own propaganda programs. Without question some of these governments were good governments – genuinely devoted to the welfare of their people and the development of their economies – but logic and fact are not the same as what people believe. The mutilated body of Iraqi Premier Nuri As-said, to cite one vivid example, hanging from a Bagjhdad lamp post a year ago last July, became the symbol of what happened to our policy in Iraq.

Is it not ironic that today – after considerable expenditure, turmoil, Communist gains and Western defeats – we are striving to achieve for the Middle East the very status of neutrality on which we turned our backs some three years ago?

In short, from here on out, the question is not whether we should accept the neutralist tendencies of the Arabs, but how we can work with them. The question is not whether we should recognize the force of Arab nationalism, but how we can help to channel it along constructive lines.

The mistaken attitudes of the past – our previous misconceptions and psychological barriers – must all be junked – for the sake of the Arabs and for our own sake as well. Where our approach was once trite and traditional, it must now be imaginative, progressive, and practical. Above all, it must recognize things as they are and not just as we would have them to be for our convenience. We must talk in terms that go beyond the vocabulary of Cold War – terms that translate themselves into tangible values and self-interest for the Arabs as well as ourselves.

It is not enough to talk only in terms of guns and money – for guns and money are not the basic need in the Middle East. It is not enough to approach their problems on a piecemeal basis. It is not enough to merely ride with a very shaky status quo. It is not enough to recall the Baghdad Pact or the Eisenhower Doctrine – it is not enough to rely on the Voice of America or the Sixth Fleet. The approaches have failed.

But if we can learn from the lessons of the past – if we can refrain from pressing our case so hard that the Arabs feel their neutrality and nationalism are threatened – if we can talk with them in terms of their problems, not ours – then I am convinced that the Middle East can become an area of strength and hope. Let us make clear that we will never turn our back on our steadfast friends in Israel, whose adherence to the democratic way must be admired by all friends of freedom. But let us also make clear throughout the Middle East that we want friendship, not satellites – and we are interested in their prosperity as well as ours. To do this job, to do it right, requires the combination of imagination and restraint which we have thus far not demonstrated in the Middle East. But the time to do so is now.

While we, along with the leaders of our nation and the world, are concerned tonight with the daily developments in the Middle East, I think my comments should be directed toward a longer-range view of the situation. It would be worth while for all of us now while negotiations proceed to examine the problems that will still be present once hostilities have ceased, borders have been redrawn, and alliances rebuilt.

Much in the Middle East, of course, is the same as it was a generation ago; much will remain the same: the special importance of the Middle East to the great religions of the world, Jewish, Moslem and Christian; the economic interests of Britain and France in the area, present today as they were a generation ago; the traditional rivalries between the various Arab blocs, between the Saudis and the Hashimites, beween the Nile and the Euphraties-Tigris valleys, between northern Arabs and Southern Arabs, rich states and poor.

But let us consider the new trends and developments which have altered the character and significance of the Middle East and its problems, and with which we will be reckoning long after the present crisis has ended. There are, it seems to me, seven such facts.

  • First is the highly strategic position occupied by the Middle East in the world’s political, ideological and military battles…the Middle East has consequently assumed an importance in the Cold War out of proportion to its size, strength and previous significance.
  • The second permanent factor in the Middle East of which we must never lose sight is oil. The dependence of the world upon Middle Eastern oil and its transportation through the Suez Canal has been made abundantly clear. Whatever political and military settlements are made, whatever tensions are lifted and problems solved, we must remember that Europe’s dependence upon these oil supplies will continue – and continue indefinitely, regardless of our developments in atomic energy.
  • The third fact which will remain once the dust of the present battle has settled and the smoke has cleared away will be the unprecedented success of Soviet penetration in the Middle East….
  • Fourth, we must never consider the problems of the nations of the Middle East apart from the economic and social conditions which surround them. Life in the Middle East, it has been said, is a perpetual fight against the desert, and always the desert has won in the past – with poverty and illiteracy and disease and underdevelopment dominating an area where only a few enjoy the benefits of great oil and land holdings. Indeed, the increase in outside capital poured into the area to exploit its oil and other resources has only aggravated the problems of unequal distribution of wealth and inadequate development of human resources. These are problems with which the new nations of the Middle East must struggle for the next generation; and no amount of nationalistic oratory can create the scientific and technological revolution necessary to raise the standard of living of their people. Nor is such a revolution easily purchased by oil royalties. It requires the closest associations and assistance of either Western Europe, who is mistrusted, or the Soviet Union, or the United States. This decision will be a continuing one facing our nation and the nations of the Middle East for many years after the close of the present hostilities.
  • Another factor is the rise of Arab nationalism, the revolt in the Middle East against Western colonialism. In Morrocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; in Jordan, Yemen, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Aden, and in Egypt and throughout the entire area, the desire to be free from direct or indirect Western influence has become a powerful and sometimes violent force. Policies of repression have only fanned the flames of discontent; and the close ties between this nation, home of the Declaration of Independence, and the great colonial powers have caused Arab spokesmen to warn our State Department that the nations of the Middle East were beginning to regard America as a supporter of colonialism. In recent weeks, particularly with respect to the present crisis, we have proclaimed our independence from our traditional allies on issues affected by the colonialism-nationalism struggle, but it is not yet clear that we have recognized this factor to be the most powerful, dynamic force for good or evil in the Middle East today.
  • A sixth factor, related to but separate from the growing force of Arab nationalism, has been the emergence of Egypt as the leader of the Arab bloc, the champion of Arab unity, and the chief provocator against the West…it’s roots are in the history of Egypt’s bitter relations with the British….and in a series of more recent Western actions in the area which Egypt regarded either as an affront or a threat to its prestige…
  • Seventh, the character of the Middle East will be shaped for generations to come by one more factor which was not present a generation ago – the State of Israel. It is time for all the nations of the world, in the Middle East and elsewhere, realized that Israel is here to stay. Surrounded on every side by violent hate and prejudice, living each day in an atmosphere of constant tension and fear, Israel is certain to survive the present crisis and all future crisis; and all negotiations between the United States and Arab nations should accept that fact.

The future of the Middle East will be based upon the interrelation of these seven factors. We now realize that there is no problem in the Middle East in which the security of the United States is not involved and to the solution of which we don not have some responsibility. But we shall fulfill those responsibilities with lasting benefits for ourselves and the world only if we develop a Middle Eastern policy of our own; and only if we base that policy upon a long-range point of view – upon the interlocking and interaction of the above facts and factors.

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My post #103 was copied by a moderator and put in this section without me being told and Bill Kelly posts against it. I think that is immoral.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/code_red_pentagon_scam.htm

The cyber-security perception management machinery was also put into high gear in the August 1 edtion of The Washington Times. A story by Ben Barber hyped the threat posed by Palestinian computer users who have launched a so-called "cyber-Jihad" against Israeli government and corporate computers.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

BARBER A KELLY BUDDY writes a CRAZY PROPAGANDA PIECE AGAINST Palestinians

WHY Bill , WHY ????? Have you no shame ?????

BTW the Israeli State Dept has a current program to pay bloggers to write pro-Israel material on the net .

BILL KELLY OWN SITE ( Kelly dinner with Barber ??)

He may have been preparing to leave the maelstrom of Libyan politics for good. By 2010, he’d begun plans to move Al-Ghad out of Libya, and, having completed his Ph.D., he was asked by Oxford University Press to write two books on, ironically, the subject of creating civil institutions in countries like Libya. When he had dinner with Barber in December, he still had no plans to return. “It’s much easier for me to be outside of the country,” Saif said.

For a yearly fee that reached $3 million, Monitor also mounted an international public-relations campaign to “enhance international understanding and appreciation of Libya and the contribution it has made and may continue to make to its region and to the world,” according to a memo. This entailed bringing to Libya a who’s-who gallery of public intellectuals, including Harvard’s Robert Putnam and Joseph Nye and former LSE director Anthony Giddens. Some, like Barber, were paid consulting fees. Others wrote glowing stories about the new Libya in the press, and Monitor offered, for an additional $2.4 million, to ghostwrite a book under Muammar’s name.

(one has to ask how much was Bill paid ????????? Is Bill others ?????,this would explain why my post was moderator fiddled with))

Edited by Steven Gaal
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