Departures From Protocol at the UN

Sketching out the New Libya: Departures From Protocol at the UN
July 28/29, 2011
extensive edits Sept. 12

From What Fount Springeth This? 
The unfolding of the new libya, and its old colors of monarchy, has been painted as the natural triumph of the peoples' will against a tyrant's rule. This had just occurred in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia (and nowhere else yet), leaving everyone just knowing it was just time for change in that narrow region and, hey, who doesn't hate Gaddafi, right? Everyone who was capable joined with the masses, we believed, driven by the noblest of abstract virtues - freedom, equality, justice - perhaps unseen in such purity since the French Revolution. The old, the corrupt, and the cruel was to be swept away by crashing waves of light, it seemed back around March 1.

By now we can see this wasn't quite right (well, most of us can). In fact the reality on the ground seems artificially murky, brutal, deceptive, and highly troubling. And the first and major steps towards enforcing any new Libya - the help of powerful outsiders - looks more like a well-planned soft coup than a mass uprising.

The uprising originated, to some extent anyway, with Libyans - but only a select few visionary ones operating within Libya, in Paris, and especially in New York. These pioneers worked largely through the United Nations, but in an unusual personal, not national capacity. I'm no expert on international law, but I suspect what happened here was illegal.

This fascinating but ignored line of thought is the cornerstone of an impressive recent article I read and will cite throughout this one: The Role of the UN Security Council in Unleashing an Illegal War against Libya, by Ronda Hauben, published on July 20 by the Center for Research on Gloablization.

The article starts with the the official explanation why the UN's Security Council chose to take up the issue of Libya: a member state of the Security Council, Lebanon, had brought the issue before them in late February. This was followed by a second from the Arab League, and the white people countries well-known for loathing Gaddafi simply followed up on that. No euro-Imperialism there, most presume.

But the Arab League has its own conflicts of interest and reasons to dislike the Libyan regime, at least in the alleged 2003 Gaddafi plot to kill Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah (a decent starter source, NYT, on that strange chapter). There are also supposed rivalries over religious influence, wiath Gaddafi accused of wanting to supplant the medieval monarchy and make Libya the new center of Islam (can't find a handy link for that).

And Qatar, a firm non-european support for the rebellion against Gaddafi in every conceivable way, through the Arab League and on their own, has some kind of previous beef with the Colonel that's apparently quite serious. According to recently published reports, based on files found in Tripoli, British authorities had agreed to offer special protection to Seif al-Islam Gaddafi from a possible 2002 plot to kill him. According to Muzaffar Iqbal, writing for Pakistan's The News (International), the plot might be disinformation, but was linked to "Qatar’s interior minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani," who "was also accused of sheltering “terrorists” at his farm by none other Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, who considered his ministerial post a “direct and serious threat to US forces present in Qatar.""

The Arab League - Arabs! - approved
"no fly" at the UN. Photo: Reuters, 
via the Sofia Echo

And as the UK Guardian noted, Lebanon also has its beef with the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, in the form of a long-dead Shia cleric allegedly killed and buried - or alive? - inside Libya. By the sound of it, this was well-played on by rumor-spinning rebel schemers and helped prod things along.

Along with a hasty, poorly-attended, and still far from unanimous vote, the Arab League - Arabs! - approved a "no fly zone," and thus provided a fig leaf for this open door to imperialist  bombardment of Muslims which they later - limply - protested for a couple of days.

The "hate Gaddafi" club - which the regime had clearly allowed grow too large - put themselves in charge of writing Libya's future. The "screw Gaddafi" and "oh well, what can you expect?" clubs - also too large - apparently just let them do it, with nothing more severe than abstention.

The Libyan Invite I: Dabbashi  
But even with the troubling grudges considered, this telling obscures an earlier and shadier genesis yet, Hauben argues, also from within the Arab world.

It was not a Security Council member nation which started this process. Nor was it the Arab League. Rather it was a party that one could argue had no legitimate basis to speak at the United Nations, especially not to the Security Council.

This party, was, by that time, the former Chargé d’Affaires to the United Nations for the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [Libya], Ibrahim Dabbashi. Dabbashi had taken the unusual actions of first announcing to the press that he had defected from representing the government of Libya at the UN, and then requesting an emergency meeting of the Security Council about the situation in Libya.

His request to the Security Council began a process which, in less than a week, resulted in passing the stringent sanctions against Libya and the referral of its officials to the ICC that are included in SC Resolution 1970. SC Resolution 1970 then set the stage for SC Resolution 1973 passed three weeks later which authorized military action against Libya.

Mr. Dabbashi seems to be the second in charge of the mission to the UN, normally. The mission was actually headed by Abdel Rahman Shalgham, the Permanent Representative of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Libya's formal title). Why Shalgham's Chargé d’Affaires was able to have such leverage isn't clear to me; elsewhere Dabbashi is also described as the "Deputy Ambassador," so perhaps he was in charge at the moment, February 21 to be precise, for some legitimate reason.

Either way, the underling defected on day six of greatly misunderstood "protests", rejecting the post he filled ... or, rather, not doing that. As Hauben put it "while an appropriate course for a defecting government official from a country would be to resign his official position as a Deputy Ambassador for Libya at the United Nations, this is not what happened."

Dabbashi tells it juuuust how
it is. Photo: Al Arabiya

In fact, he went on to represent "the people" of Libya. This always clearly meant the anti-Gaddafi insurgents, and eventually their strange political leadership, the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC or some variant - they change it every couple months). But before they had quite gelled, Mr. Dabbashi in New York had declared himself their ambassador - and not the deputy. By dint of entrepreneurial spirit and swift action, he was now the boss now and his old boss ... that remained to be seen. Boss again, or an enemy supporting the "genocide?"


Ibrahim Dabbashi's actions were clearly geared towards creating a new nation in the space of the old, and that seems a bit like diplomatic warfare to me. And whether he knew or suspected it then, he was making himself the permanent representative to the UN for racist lynch mobs, looters and retribution thugs, arsonists, rapists, cop-killers, serial fakers of claims and evidence, neo-colonialist free-market sell-outs, genuine if misguided freedom-seekers, and, to some extent, al Qaeda and assorted Islamo-nihilist mercenaries.

Dabbashi's Roadmap
Either way, I went a bit beyond Hauben to see more of just what this turncoat did with his invented new position; it would take the form of words on the record. I rely on an article from Al Jazeera English, Feb 22. By this, it's not the cautious statement of a loyal servant of his government forced by events. The turns of phrase and even more the suggested actions reveal a rather advanced conception of what this crisis offered and how it should be exploited. Calling on the widely reported but unverified rumors of a bloodbath, he said in part:

The tyrant Muammar Gaddafi has asserted clearly, through his sons, the level of ignorance he and his children have, and how much he despises Libya and the Libyan people [...]
This is in fact a declaration of war against the Libyan people. The regime of Gaddafi has already started the genocide against the Libyan people.

The officers and soldiers of the Libyan army wherever they are and whatever their rank is ... [should] organise themselves and move towards Tripoli and cut the snake's head.

Here Dabbashi clarifies he is declaring war, but only after the other side started it. With quick and comprehensive thinking, he laid out much of how it should be done: he demanded an inquiry by the International Criminal Court for crimes against Humanity by Gaddafi and his sons (investigation done, warrants eventually issued, used as bargaining chips to bring the NTC to power). He warned of Gaddafi fleeing justice into exile (setting up the travel ban), and warned of money smuggling (setting the world towards freezing as much of the Libyan economy as possible).

He also prophetically recommended a no-fly zone and air embargo over Libya, as al Jazeera explained, "to prevent mercenaries and weapons from being shipped [sic] in." (It was only just then that rumors of aerial bombardment were starting to appear as well, greatly strengthening this case).  He warned of sabotage at oil installations "by the coward tyrant," (reminding us all what this was really about). And of course he encouraged employees of Libyan embassies all over the world to join him, and "stand with their people." He urged this specifically for the mission in Geneva, which should pressure the UN Human Rights Council to action. [again, the al Jazeera article]

By and large, these diplomatic defections did happen, swiftly and en masse, a real coup of an achievement. Other areas of the government and military only dribbled defectors, usually loud-mouthed ones, but the ambassadors just poured out, helping convince the world it must really be over for the Jamahiriya. And again, this moved fast starting on day six of the violent protests in Libya that allegedly surprised everyone.

Mr. Dabbashi's bold course of action, as personal as it was, could conceivably have lined up with the overall will of Libya's people.  Clearly a formidable segment rejects Gaddafi just as virulently (if less strategically) as he does. But with time to understand, we can see the impression of a total nationwide mutiny that drove Dabbashi was a fiction, and one he himself co-wrote.

Al-Mesmari and The Date that Lives in Infamy/A Cabal Enabled? 
The address above was given on February 22, since the UN headquarters was closed on the the 21st when Dabbashi first announced his resignation elsewhere (President's Day is for the whole world now). Besides commemorating our own great leaders, the date of his unequivocal defection is noteworthy. As Hauben explains, another Libyan official, Nouri al-Mesmari, also announced his resignation as the Jamahiriya's protocal chief on the 21st.

Al-Mesmari resigned from Paris, having informally resigned upon flying there, unannounced, in October. He had reportedly spent the time between linking French intelligence with Libyans planning some nebulous uprising set for February, and rebuffing all inducement to return to the targeted nation. (See here for explanation.)

Al-Mesmari's previous job as chief of protocol (from Which Dabbashi would so boldly stray) had put him into intimate contact with all diplomatic posts, like Dabbashi's. He told al Jazeera on February 27 (video) that he was "a pure diplomat," in charge of "relationship with the embassies." Strangely, six days after resigning, he told them "I am in charge of the diplomacy in Libya" (emph. mine).

And for what it's worth, it's also been speculated by seasoned observers that al-Mesmari was in turn put up to defect by now-defected Libyan foreign sinister Moussa Koussa (reported on Africa Intelligence, passed on via Meyssan at least).  Hauben also makes note of both men, Mesmari and Dabbashi, making specific use of the term "genocide" to describe what Gaddafi was doing. This term has no basis in reality, with the "cide" based on confused rumors, and the "geno" part being just silly. But that precise word, accurate or not, does have a certain resonance - especially in Geneva.

The apparent signal for these twin defectors in Paris and New York was the decisive turn of the previous day in Benghazi, their emergent rebel capitol. Heavily armed "protesters" finally overwhelmed the Katiba army barracks, after days of trying, with the heroic help of a suicide bomber. To save this last toehold of security in the city, Interior Minister Abdel Fateh Younes was sent by Tripoli to restore order. But upon arrival he made a deal - the surviving soldiers would be allowed to leave, and he, Younes the great, would join their cause, along with the force he brought. He was "with the people" publicly by the evening of the 20th.

It was first thing in the morning that these two made their announcements - only once it was clear Benghazi had fallen and Younes had jumped. If people are jumping, it might seem like the ship is sinking. And they knew, by some instinct (?), it was time to add to that impression and quickly, before it could be shown the Jamahiriya still sailed on, just a few rats lighter.


As I've noted here before, it's generally illegal to recognize a group not in charge of a nation. And even considering that, there was no group here - Dabbashi at first represented no legally extant body. If he was chosen by anyone in particular, (besides that defunct old regime that once chose him), it would be by a still-unproven conspiratorial cabal, who all agreed to things like "say genocide," and "be sure to mention his sons!"

If not Conspiratorial, at Least Illegal
These are just little clues, and not proof, but in concert with the stealing and re-appropriation of government posts, alarm bells should have been going off.

It would appear to be a serious breach of UN protocol for a defecting official who had formerly been the representative of a nation that is a member of the UN, to be able to request a Security Council meeting and to have the Security Council grant the meeting and allow the defecting official to participate in the meeting. Similarly, to allow the defecting diplomat to make unverified allegations at the meeting against the government of a UN member nation would only compound the serious violation of the UN Charter represented by this abuse of UN processes.

I never really thought about it before reading this article, but that does seem quite illegal. I just thought it sounded extremely wrong. Why did I not think of, or hear of the actual impropriety of it? I can understand the Americans, French, Qataris, etc. biting their tongues and egging this on, but where are the clear protests from Russia, China, Venezuela? (Out there, perhaps, but ignored). This is really a strange and shady situation. As Reuters said:

The [security] council met at the request of Libyan Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi, who along with most other staff at Libya’s U.N. mission announced on Monday they were no longer working for leader Muammar Gaddafi and represented the country’s people. They called for Gaddafi’s overthrow.”

The Libyan Invite II: Shalgham Jumps Ship, Washington Sinks It
As we've seen, deputy ambassador Dabbasi took the first bold steps, while his superior, ambassador Shalgham at first acted differently. Before mindlessly repeating the tales of massacres and "genocide," he called home and asked. Hauben cites this video and explains:

Shalgham also attended the February 22 Security Council meeting, along with Dabbashi. In informal comments after the meeting, Shalgham indicated that he had been in contact with a relative in Tripoli and was told that the alleged atrocities that the media was claiming had happened in Tripoli were not true. 

Similarly, speaking to the press, he indicated that he had been in contact with government officials in Tripoli who said that they, too, disputed the claims of atrocities taking place in Tripoli and planned to invite journalists from Al Arabiya and CNN to see for themselves that the allegations were inaccurate.

These offers would have been useful towards establishing the truth as it's now emerging, but they were rebuffed forcefully by the West. Shalgham's pointed reference to Tripoli's view was not in the spirit of the cabal, and as that video link shows, made him a persona non-grata with the journalists there, expecting an absolute defection to the "light side."

But he was somehow brought around, perhaps by his number two, or any other comination of forces in this massive geo-political lynch mob against his home government. Within a couple of days, he too was resigning and denouncing his personal friend, Muammar Gaddafi, and his regime in stringent terms. A more specific example of the diplomatic disconnect over who represents Libya arises from his subsequent lobbying, as Hauben explains:

One good example of this departure from protocol obligations is demonstrated by two documents. The first is Security Council Resolution 1970 (S/RES/1970(2011). The document states in its opening statement (21):

“Taking note of the letter to the President of the Security Council from the Permanent Representative of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya dated 26 February 2011.” (S/Res/1970(2011),p.1)

The problem of acknowledging this letter this way in the body of Resolution 1970 is that on February 25, the former Libyan Ambassador to the UN, Abdel Rahman Shalgham had informed the Security Council that he had defected.

By February 26 he no longer represented the Libyan government. Consequently there was no basis for the Security Council to refer to a letter from him, as a letter from the Permanent Representative of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

The Security Council should have found a way to hear from a member of the government of Libya, rather than substituting a defector Ambassador and his delegation for the official delegation of Libya.

Once enough rats had jumped, the ship was sunk. However many nations immediately recognized them or didn't, the UNSC had recognized the rebels from a mile away as of February 22. The Gaddafi regime was diplomatically neutered, just a thing that the bombing of could commence.  As Hauben noted, the actual Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, headquartered in Tripoli, in charge of most of Libya, and supported by an uncertain but sizeable chunk of Libya's people, was not allowed to speak for itself. 

No legitimate Libyan government official was invited to take part in Security Council proceedings. When the Libyan government tried to appoint legitimate government officials to replace the defector delegation, the US government would not approve the visa requests for the replacement delegates, in violation of the Host Country obligations of the US. In this way, the US prevented the Libyan government from being able to present its case before the Security Council.

And so Mr. Shalgham, the slightly delayed rebel ambassador of NATO's Libyans, was number one again and Dabbashi again his deputy. The ambassador of the brand-new nation, sketched out in New York and soon inked-in with ever more blood in Libya, put his words on the record on the 25th. He easily swayed the council to embraced the new Libya, literally. One last time, Hauben:

In his presentation to the Security Council meeting on Friday, February 25, Shalgham made a virulent denunciation of the Libyan government, complete with analogies to Hitler. Shalgham ignored the conflicting accounts of what was happening in Benghazi and instead painted a picture of peacefully demonstrating civilians unjustly subjected to a massacre. 

Shalgham presented no proof for his allegations nor was he asked to present any. Instead, he was consoled by the Secretary General and members of the Security Council, with several Security Council members, embracing and comforting him. 

Photo: Monika Graff, Getty Images

At right is actually a separate hug on March 16, upon securing the pivotal no-fly zone at the UNSC, sanctioning NATO bombardment of his country. Shalgham, right, and the US ambasssador, Susan Rice, left. Might have that backwards, I don't follow the news too close.

Something snapped between February 22 and 25, and the real Abdel Rahman Shalgham was apparently killed in the process, another early casualty of the Libyan Civil War, snuffed out like so many under murky circumstances.

The War Continues

September 4, 2011
last updates Sept. 13

Even as Tripoli has apparently fallen for good and is suddenly racked with horrific "Gaddafi" atrocities, the green side fights on. The cities of Sirte, Bani Walad, and Sabha, at least, are still in the hands of Gaddafi loyalists, including tribal militias. They are still being bombed by NATO's warplanes and attacked by their helicopters, as they prepare for a September 10 surrender deadline or a September 11 assault by al Qaeda-linked rebel lynch mobs.

I have nothing much to add. News on the "fighting" is scarce, with most reportage being about the search for a negotiated settlement and analyses of how long this last mop-up will take before Libya is purged and purified for the forces of neo-Liberal freedom. The world is not likely to allow them to just stay there like an Indian reservation. They'd surely attack "civilians" (Libya's new government and army) all over again if left alone, even if they swore not to. Everyone knows you can't trust Gaddafi. So they must go if they don't abjectly surrender (and they probably won't).

My heart goes out to all those caught in the crossfire, as well as to those still holding to their oaths and prepared to die for what they feel is right. Once you are dead or locked up to die of sadness or torture, future Libya will be deprived of your input and guidance. But that was probably going to be the case anyway. This is not an exercise in sharing by NATO and its preferred leadership of "free-market" crusaders.

Sept 7: A video from a hospital in Sirte:

Euronews on Bani Walid, Moussa Ibrahim states refusal of negotiations:

---
Update Sept. 12


No Adequate Surrender, Perhaps None Possible

The Telegraph reported:

Negotiations for Sirte have so far failed because residents insisted the former rebels could only enter if they came without weapons and they wanted an amnesty for anyone guilty of crimes committed under Gaddafi's regime. Many there fear a wave of revenge and looting [and rightly so - ed] on a city that is closely associated with Gaddafi and his inner circle.

On Saturday, the head of the transitional government, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, tried to convince them, along with residents of Bani Walid, that they had nothing to fear. "We try to extend our hands to show peace to our brothers there to let our troops enter these cities peacefully without fighting," he said. [they were unconvinced - ed] At the same, however, he added that the deadline for surrender had expired and an attack was imminent. "Now the situation is in the hands of our revolutionary fighters," he said.

Hold on - they agreed to surrender to NTC rule so long as no one is prosecuted, and no one is shot? They agreed to stop fighting and allow a peaceful transition, if I'm reading that right, but the rebels rejected it? They want only blood (via some kangaroo "trial," perhaps), and want to keep their wildly-brandished weapons for drawing blood, while promising to be peaceful for the first time once inside Sirte of all places? And the world is okay that the attacks is coming? I'll have to look into that...

One option open to someone presented with such an offer would be to take them up on it, have a peaceful transfer and play the good guys for once, and then deal with the alleged crimes Gaddafi and son were to stand trial for in one or another of ways. They could find a way to realize it was largely crap and noise, even apologize for their part in that, and agree to move on. They could try to coax Gaddafi to stand trial with promises of a fairness, made credible and eventually delivered on, and start a national healing process. Or they could just renege after the peace and try to arrest him, even at the risk of briefly opening the war again if necessary. At least there could be a breather in there and a cooling-down period, some time to catch up on sleep, get well-fed again, bury the dead, and grieve a bit.

But they've opted to say "no dice. If we're not forced to concede anything, we won't." While they've got the momentum and the bombers there, all loose ends will be tied up at once, in a totalitarian sense. Every demand must be met, and now.

Chaotic Attacks on Bani Walid
So, the promised deadline and promised date of attack has come and passed without adequate concessions from the Libyan government. Bani Walid, where Seif al-Islam and Saadi Gaddafi were thought to be holding out was attacked. The offensive there began a day ahead of schedule on September 9, after taking fire from loyalist Grads, it's said. Bloomberg reports some details:

The rebel Halbus brigade from Misrata entered the suburbs of Bani Walid along the Maldoon Valley, getting to within six miles from the town center, according to Khalid Abdula Salem, commander of the rebel Western Front, in an interview from his headquarters in the oasis Abdul Rauf.

They found some homes displaying the rebel tricolor and others the green flag of the Qaddafi regime, Salem said.

Bani Walid’s garrison is composed of the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Qaddafi’s son Khamis, members of the Legion Thoria secret police, and units of mercenaries from Darfur, Salem said.

Khamis? Hasn't he been killed now like five times? As for the "African mercenaries," you know, by mid-September it might finally be true. Back in February, and through most of the war, however, it definitely was not true.

The assault was called "chaotic" by fighters there and by the Global Post, lacking in co-ordination. That means it failed. Where it's a chaotic winning fight, and they can slaughter freely, they don't complain. Indeed, a rebel fighter told the Post:

Monem said 10 revolutionaries died Sunday and 15 were injured, with most being hit from well-concealed or elevated positions. “There’s no clear target,” Monem said. “There’s no close snipers. They’re not shooting us with Kalashnikovs. The distance [they’re shooting from] is about a kilometer and a half, maybe two. With my gun [AK-47] I cannot shoot them. I did not fire one shot today because there is no clear target.” He said some rebels answer was to shoot randomly in the air.

I recall seeing the Libyan government do about the same, with anti-aircraft guns, when under the abuse of god-like NATO forces. But these guys are the aggressors here, not the defenders. The Global Post also has Rebel leaders reiterate their intentions to aggress further:

[The] National Transitional Council say they won't consider Libya fully "liberated" until these loyalist centers fall."
[...]
On Sunday, they went into the fringes of Bani Walid and were bloodied by long distance guns and locals shooting at them from house to house.

What the hell! Why don't these human shields want to be liberated? Are they shooting only out of fear? Their dang heads will come off soon either way! They just stuffed Abu Salim trauma hospital with some hundred examples of their handiwork. It's nothing new really, after dozens of taken cities and similar atrocities blamed on the crumbling regime. And now freedom and "sanity" are coming to the last few holdouts.

NATO War Crimes Alleged
NATO's air support for this surge of freedom of course continues. How on Earth could it turn back now? I can't confirm the following, but Leonore in Libya (good with rumors, not so much with details), a site called Ozyism, and something called Alrai TV (Syrian?), all report that, however they're delivering them, NATO's using cluster bombs and mustard gas. As Leonore put it (translated):

Bani Walid: NATO used cluster bombs and mustard gas against Bani Walid [...] during the heavy bombing of NATO. This is a crime against humanity and against international law and standards.

Ozyism reported it once (unconfirmed), then again, (confirmed). The last was partly because Alrai TV in an on-line osting, has what it says is a photograph of one of the victims' face, dead, burnt and ravished. I'm skeptical of this, but no expert either.

Towards a Bloodbath in Sirte
Saadi has slipped out of Bani Walid into Niger, it's been reported, and Seif, is he's there or ever was, is safe for the moment. They stopped that attack and now the rebels are advancing on Sirte, where their father is "hiding," as the Tripoli post recently said, "like some rat." They halted the Bani Walid offensive not because it was too tough, but because that was their clever plan. As Bloomberg reported:

“Our mission is not to capture Bani Walid, it is to block the town and attack Sirte,” said [rebel intelligence officer Noraldien] Elmaiel, who is based in the rebel-held town of Misrata.
[...]
The rebels pushed through the front line west of Sirte and were 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the town yesterday.

Protecting their flank was a large screening force of jeep- mounted infantry that moved from forward positions near Bani Walid to push eastward, south of the coastal highway, capturing the towns of Zem Zem and Wadi Bay against light resistance, said Elmaiel.

At Kilometer Sixty, 110 miles west of Sirte and the furthest point rebel forces allowed journalists to travel, columns of black pickup trucks mounting machine guns streamed to and from the front, stirring up clouds of dust that blew across the highway.

“They are hitting us with artillery, with mortars, with Grad rockets,” said sweat-soaked 20-year-old rebel fighter Ismail Katika. “We can’t hit the guns, we can’t see them.”

Same problem they had at Bani Walid. Try dealing with NATO bombers some day, you punk.

Human shields are feared again, the Telegraph reports, of the held-hostage in the face of rebel onslaught variant.

Fathi Baja, head of political affairs for the National Transitional Council (NTC), told McClatchy Newspapers that on Thursday as many as 300 hostages had been moved to the village – a stronghold of Gaddafi's Gaddafa tribe – to be used as "human shields" to prevent any advance on the city.

Decoded: Their "chaotic" forces are expected to kill about this many civilians they'll need to blame on Gaddafi. It was predicted for Tripoli, and it happened - the regime killed hundreds of men women and children, freedom-loving Libyans who nearly all, in photos, look like regime loyalists or rotting "African mercenaries." Photos from Sirte or Bani Walid: less likely.

My hunch is they know some majority of the country still supported Gaddafi openly up until armed rebel kids with awkward beards were on their streets. They know the tribes are solid and might resist the NTC takeover, and the hardcore loyalists - hundreds of thousands of them - will require too much de-programming. The free market future would greatly benefit from what the rebels are pushing here - head-on battles, after more massive air-power softening by NATO, with all the crimes buried silently inside, and every last scrap of Human flesh admitted to pinned on Gaddafi's account. He killed the whole town in a fit of madness the FFs were just too late to prevent, as usual.

It's hoped by some this will be the final and climactic demonization of the war, again justifying the war in spades, and will along the way kill as many problem people as possible (Islamists against loyalists?) and really humble those remaining into abject silence and possibly quiet self-implosions from grief.

It's time to ask world leaders an important question: "Hey, how's that operation to prevent a bloodbath in Benghazi coming along?"

Sept. 13: NATO airstrikes pound pro-Gadhafi targets

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — NATO says its warplanes have pounded targets in a number of key strongholds of support for fugitive dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

The alliance said Tuesday that airstrikes struck one radar system, eight surface-to-air missile systems, five surface-to-air missile trailers, one armed vehicle and two command vehicles a day earlier near Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte.

NATO also says it struck six tanks and two armored fighting vehicles in Sabha in the southern desert.

Jamahiriya counter-attack on Ras Lanuf reported by al Jazeera English
Hoda Abdel-Hamid on Ras Lanuf refinery attack
Vancouver Sun reports it too

The Independent reports on "Schisms" in the rebel ranks on the latest assaults. The local Warfalla tribe members working with the rebellion have let them down a couple times, and are becoming suspected of being "traitors," of putting tribal loyalties (and hence Gaddafi loyalties) over loyalties to NATO's one Libya. This may not go well for the Warfalla in the long run, true or not.

More on the Grinding Down of Sirte, up to Sept. 30:
Situation in Sirte: Neither Good Nor Great

Gaddafi Burning Soldiers Alive: Really?

August 29, 2011
last edits Oct. 13

Suddenly Relevant
A recent turn of the news has spurred me to finally finish this long-neglected draft post. At least fifty-three more people have been found killed in the expanding Tripoli massacres, burnt to literally skeletal remains. These were found, still smoldering, on August 26 or 27 (accounts vary) in a warehouse next to the base of the demonized Khamis brigade, long reported to engage in serious crimes against humanity. Thus the crime is blamed saqurely, by location and by several self-described escapees of the massacre, as committed by the Gaddafi regime against those in the uprising.

The incident remains, in this researcher's mind, extremely questonable. I will wait until I've reviewed the evidence closer to to see if it still seems that way then. Most who hear these reports will, however, just presume it's all the truth, and not possibly made up by the rebel forces or the suspiciously numerous but relatively consistent eyewitnesses.

The temptation to just believe is understandable. After all, this heinous cinderization of families, freedom-seekers, and a few soldiers who wanted to defect, matches a previously "known" pattern: Gaddafi troops charring people like this, especially the mutinous military folk, in moments of extreme peril. Just before or maybe just after rebel fighters overwhelm some notorious government positions and kill them or send them running, Gaddafi's thugs allegedly often make a decision to burn the hell out of someone noble who's simply standing up for what's right.

Really?
This previous pattern is something I've somehow managed to gloss over almost completely, even at the epic Rebel Atrocity Videos. I've been meaning to fix that and note the alleged burning, alive, of government soldiers, by the government, along with my suspicions that something else was going on there.

As the claims stood back in February, this extreme death was usually ordered for those heroic soldiers who refused to attack protesters as ordered. However, this same motive was claimed for a certain 22 soldiers (among 130 total!), bound and executed by gunshots to the head in or around al Baida. They wouldn't shoot protester, so their officers shot them, before just disappearing themselves.

And in the case of the al-Baida massacre, the rebel claim falls apart on scrutiny. A separate video (posted by rebels, later pulled, and in-between found and shown by Libyan TV) shows at least one of the men killed, among nine men with several possible matches with the heroic dead, still alive and being sentenced to die by their captors - bearded, civilian, "protesters," clearly. Their crime was pronounced as daring to shoot back as the terrorists attacked their position, which they had a right to do, "to defend themselves." (The bodies of these heroic martyrs, by the way, were cursed by rebel viewers the following day as dogs who deserved their fate. Odd considering what they told the outside world.)

So if the victim is charred to a crisp, is the same rebel story of who killed them and why any more credible?

Firestarters
For starters, the rebels/"protesters" were the known fire bugs in these early days, destroying police stations with fire in many cities, as early as February 15. Three internal security stations in Benghazi alone were reportedly burnt on the 16th, in raids that led to some of the first, low-key "protester" deaths there.

Secondly, burning of bodies made mostly of water is not the most efficient way to ensure the death of mutineers. Here is one video of a "protester" attempt, on a man already killed, that failed. It is however a conveniently cruel method, and would help to demonize oneself, if that was one's bag. Perhaps that facts explains why the rebels, so intent on demonizing their enemy, decided to do these barbecue attacks, as well as educating the world on what really happened.

I believe there are multiple videos of different instances of "soldiers burned alive" in the uprising's first couple of days. But for now I'll focus on this widely-seen one, from the Benghazi front, posted February 21 (video is below). A "news" article from the next day referred to this find and gave the following, indirectly useful, information:

Five charred bodies were found Monday in military barracks in Benghazi, the second-largest city in Libya and a stronghold of anti-Gaddafi protesters. According to one of our Observers, the bodies were those of soldiers savagely massacred for refusing orders to fire against Libyan civilians protesting in the African nation.

Government-run Jamahiriya News Agency (JANA) reported last week that the Al-Fudhail bin Omar base, home of the barracks where the bodies were found, was an important target of anti-Gaddafi protests.

Benghazi fell to protesters on February 18. Two days later, demonstrators headed to the military compound to demolish the building they regarded as a symbol of Gaddafi’s authoritarian rule. JANA reported that the building had been pillaged by "rioters" but did not mention that the bodies of five burned soldiers had been found.

Actually, Benghazi didn't fall in a meaningful way until the 20th, when the sprawling, walled-in barracks in the center of the city, sometimes called the Katiba, finally fell after days of "protester" attacks. It was a major symbol indeed, and much-hated, and indeed the same base where these bodies were found. A UN report (advance unedited version, PDF link) mentioned "incidents of protestors being injured by government forces were reported in Benghazi (in front of Al-Fadhil bin Omar Katiba) [...] on February 18." That's exactly where "protesters" were killed that day and others - right next to the military base, if not exclusively than overwhelmingly.

On February 20 the armed attacks on the Katiba's walls, ongoing daily since the 17th, took a drastic turn. They were decisively breached, and an uncounted number, probably scores at least, of government soldiers were killed within the compound, with at least one beheaded by the enraged masses. A "heroic" suicide bomber, Mahdi Ziu, had let them in. The armory was freely looted for tanks and other heavy weapon to carry out better attacks in other cities. The remaining Katiba soldiers, hundreds of them, were forced to take refuge in various buildings. Several buildings were torched by the rebels, and left gutted and smoke-stained, as later video shows. Only Interior Minister Abdel Fateh Younis was able to arrange the safe departure of those remaining, as part of his defection deal the night of the 20th.

More Martyrs on Display
Anyway, here is the video filmed in some Benghazi barracks the following day, of these exactly five carbonized soldiers:

And there's another video around of clearer resolution, posted as "people of libya is burning." This one reveals enough detail to see that one of the victims at least is missing his head (see image below).

User Ibnomar, who posted the first one, explained there:

Footage of burned soldiers Gaddafi had killed because they would not commit the brutality commanded to them

By the heaven, holding the big stars (1) And by the Promised Day (i.e. the Day of Resurrection); [yadda yadda]

In reality, when you see anything like this, consider it more than likely another rebel atrocity. If the above narrative alone doesn't do it for you, here's more food for thought.

The Real Victims - Martyrs for What?
A reader first tipped me off a while back to see the UN Human Rights Council report on abuses, on both sides, in the early civil war period. [PDF link, accompanying press release] Among their findings was endemic abuse of black Africans, men and women, and especially those from Chad. One of the more shocking which they found credible enough to pass on was this:

4. Violations committed by opposition groups. The Commission received several accounts of attacks on migrant workers carried out by armed opposition groups. […] Another case reported to the Commission related to the extra-judicial killing of five Chadian nationals who had been arrested on the basis of their nationality, and taken to the military barracks in Benghazi. Dozens of armed persons either in military style or civilian clothing were said to have poured kerosene on their bodies and burned them to death on 21 February. 

Hey, isn't that the same exact day this video was shown? Is this video of "Gaddafi crimes" in reality corroboration of this horrific rebel war crime? (Or is it a "protest" crime? Is there a tribunal for that?) Often the black-skinned dead are proudly shown on video, signs of horrific torture and all, and called African mercenaries (which they were not). But there's a whole different potency in calling the skeletons, race and clothing indeterminate, brave government soldiers, like those in al Baida, killed for their heroic stand "with the people."

Maybe the rabbles at the Katiba were left, by Younes' bargain, with less real soldiers to slaughter and play PR games with than they had hoped for. So they had to go snag five Chadian workers, arresting them as "mercenaries." But once they'd been burned alive, they were good, presumably Arab, soldiers to look up to, and just found that way in the base that had just been held by the wicked government.

Stopping Bloodbaths?
Thank God the West intervened to stop this kind of regime brutality. And now the "Freedom Fighters" are discovering dozens of even more charred bodies in Tripoli itself, in areas that had just been held by the wicked government. And again, they have the explanation all ready for us. Again, a horrific blood bath was occurring there just before the FFs pulled in. They saved countless other lives, but a little too late to save at least 400 regime victims reported to date across the holdout neighborhoods of Tripoli.

And in this case, they were just barely too late - the video of the remains show them still smoldering. 

Be skeptical here folk, hard as I know that's going to get. The moral stakes are very high, and the greatest powers in the world are intent on seeming to have backed the good guys who really are stopping slaughters, not initiating and fobbing them off. 

Update Sept. 6: I've got a video for this now.


Update Sept. 7: And a line from Clive Baldwin from Human Rights Watch, via Sky News, about his look at the scene of August's massacre:

[Baldwin] said the scene was similar to other ones he had witnessed. The warehouse was apparently used to execute people who refused to kill civilians. He said it appeared that pro-Gaddafi forces had shot detainees in the last few days before rebel fighters entered Tripoli. "We have also seen people in military uniforms," he said. "This is similar to March when we had evidence of members of the Libyan army refusing orders and being killed.

Yes indeed, it's quite similar, but that shouldn't cloud our vision of the facts on the ground. Just because it was clearly rebels burning innocent black men alive the first time doesn't necessarily mean the same thing happened here. By "March," I presume he's going by memory that he wrote about Gaddafi's crimes against humanity on March 1, holding this news in mind at the time, though it didn't seem he mentioned it there.

The Tripoli Massacres: A Rebel Terrorist Maestro?

September 5, 2011

This post in The Tripoli Massacres series considers a spooky line of thought about who is in charge of rebel operations in the capitol. There's a high likelihood that these concerns are in reality baseless, but the chance of the alternative is high enough that I feel they're worth tracing out.

Standard Concerns
Newsweek's sort of news site, The Daily Beast, reported on September 2 regarding the rebel TNC's new military chief for the Tripoli takeover, Abdel Hakim Blhaj.

Even some Libyans are worried by Abdel Hakim Belhaj. It’s not that his revolutionary credentials are anything less than impeccable. When victorious rebel forces blasted through the gates at Muammar Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli, the 45-year-old commander who led the charge was none other than Belhaj. As a battle-hardened veteran, he had organized and trained many of those rebel fighters in Libya’s western mountains. And now the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) has accepted him as head of the newly created Tripoli Military Council, with control of some 8,000 troops, the biggest fighting force in Libya.

The trouble is that Belhaj’s record as a Gaddafi adversary just might be too impressive. Belhaj is a founding member and former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is listed by both the U.S. State Department and the British Home Office as an international terrorist organization. Several past or present LIFG members have held prominent positions in al Qaeda, including operations chief Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who was recently killed in a CIA drone attack. The LIFG is hardly Libya’s only militant Islamist force, but it’s easily the biggest and very possibly the most dangerous. 

But Belhaj’s claims of innocence haven’t quelled the world’s fears about what he and his fellow Islamists might do. No one is sure how strong they are or whether they’re plotting to seize power. [...] There’s no need to worry, Belhaj insists: “Our goal is to have a free civilian government. It’s something we’ve never had in more than 40 years.”

Abdel Hakim Belhaj talks strategy.
Photo: Francois Mori / AP

As we can see, the prevailing oncern is that Mr. Belhaj will use his power, along with others, to seize control and make Libya into a dangerous anti-Western outpost. He harbors understandable anger over his CIA-MI6 capture in Southeast Asia in 2004. He was interrogated, injected with truth serum, and tortured, he says. He and his information were then handed over to the Libyans, who eventually freed him (along with others like Abdel Hakim al-Hassadi and Sufyan bin Qumu from Dernah) and are now paying the price.

But for the Westerners, he's venting instead of holding it in, which is a good sign. According to the Guardian, he's demanded an apology, after reading secret documents about his hand-over that his troops have found in Tripoli.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Balhaj was once the "emir" of has now, after negotiations with Tripoli and "rehabilitation" of many memebrs, formally sworn off violent Jihad in favor of democratic pursuit of an Islamist state. This seems to have applied to Belhaji, once the LIFG's "emir" - Asharq Alawsat English reported on August 25 "he was released in Libya in 2008, and announced his renunciation of violence the following year." But now he's taken up violence again, and so have they, while changing the name (by dropping "fighting" now that they are again, and going for what they had just been, the Libyan Islamic Movement).

But this relapse is only for within Libya. He says the LIFG was never an international Islamist group, with no gripe against other religions and no mission of global Jihad, just Libyan Jihad for an Islamist state with an emir overseeing it all. Yet he fought with bin Laden's people in Afghanistan in the 1980s and was fighting with someone in Southeast Asia when "arrested in Afghanistan and Malaysia in 2004," according to Asharq Alwasat.

The possible al Qaeda link is more troubling than the clear LIFG one. Their leader Ayman al-Zawahiri now calling for Libyan rebels, some of them former members of the network, to turn their wrath on NATO forces. But as far as I can tell, there's no direct evidence yet that contradict's Balhaj's assertion that he was himself never a member.

My concern at the moment is not a terrorist takeover of Libya's new government, or even some anti-West militancy, now or later. These things are entirely possible, but somewhat unlikely to become a huge problem. Rather, I'm concerned with what tactics a former Afghan Mujahed and relapsed Jihadist, flushed with confidence of NTC and NATO support, will use against the people of Tripoli.

The Yugoslavia Precedent: False-Flagging for Foreign Friends
Back in the late 1990s, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) of ethnic Albanians sought by violence to separate tiny Kosovo from the crumbling Yugoslavian federation. Even NATO acknowledged at one point that KLA was "the main initiator of the violence" in Kosovo and that it had "launched what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation" in its initial and brutal attacks on Serbian civilians in Kosovo. [wikipedia] But eventually, NATO would side their air power with the aggressors, provoked by perceived atrocities to counter Yugoslavia's response to the provocation.

The KLA was supported in this effort by western intel agencies and at the same time famously funded, supported, and staffed by the nascent al Qaeda. As for what they did with this help, the BBC Panorama program (transcript) passed on some interesting tidbits.

Their desperate calculation was to draw the world into Kosovo's feud.

DUGI GORANI, KOSOVO ALBANIAN NEGOTIATOR
"The more civilians were killed, the chances of international intervention became bigger, and the KLA of course realised that. There was this foreign diplomat who once told me 'Look unless you pass the quota of five thousand deaths you'll never have anybody permanently present in Kosovo from the foreign diplomacy."

Is the talk of dead civilians merely more of the proposed provocation of real responses, or were they willing to fake Serb attrocities themselves? Consider the following episode, related at Emperor's Clothes:

One particular story was repeated often: Albanian refugees would be interviewed and they would say masked Serbian policemen had forced them to leave their homes.

The Serbian forces denied the charge. Now, the Serbs could have been telling the truth, and they could have been lying, but one thing is for sure: they did not want the world to believe Serbian policemen were doing these things, hence the denial.

That being the case - why did they wear both Serbian police uniforms and masks? Given the uniforms, what good could the masks do?
[...]
On December 3, 1999, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that UN police and KFOR [that is, NATO] troops found illegal weapons, KLA uniforms, and Serb police uniforms in a house "inhabited by members of the future Kosovo Protection Corps" [the successor to the supposedly-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA].

Panorama gave some context why such apparent ruses worked with the NATO bloc. "The western world was still haunted by a profound collective guilt: it knew it had waited too long to intervene in Bosnia." And as for that earlier war in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, as it too tried to break off from Yugoslavia in the early-mid 1990s, we can see similar patterns at work.

Yosef Bodiansky and Vaughn S. Forrest wrote in 1992 for a U.S. congressional committee that Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other groups had partnered with the Bosnian Muslims, making Bosnia at that time, to the authors, "Iran's European springboard." The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command (PFLP-GC), whose crime of destroying Pan Am 103 was blamed on Libya, "had networks and offices in Yugoslavia that also housed HizbAllah operatives," the report noted.

Whether al Qaeda, KLA, LIFG, or these others, anyone can realize the power of using their own brutality against their enemies (and the enemies of the NATO bloc). Of special interest is the following:

The Iranians had argued that before any escalation in the fighting could take place, it was imperative to either gain the sympathies of the West or, at the least, to ensure that there existed a legitimate excuse that would enable the presentation of any action undertaken by Muslim forces as justifying revenge for Serbian atrocities.

To that end, beginning in May 1992, a special group of Bosnian Muslim forces, many of whom had served with Islamist terrorist organizations, began committing a series of atrocities, including "some of the worst recent killings," against Muslim civilians in Sarajevo "as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention." For example, around June 20, Serbian troops besieging Sarajevo engaged a detachment of Muslim special forces dressed in Serbian uniforms who were on their way to attack the Muslim sector from within the Serbian lines. Such an attack, if successful, would have been attributed to the Serbs. As it was, some of these Muslims troops were killed in the brief encounter and a few were captured.

Moreover, a UN investigation concluded that several key events, mostly strikes against civilians, that had galvanized public opinion and governments in the West to take bolder action in Bosnia-Hercegovina, were in fact "staged" for the Western media by the Muslims themselves in order to dramatize the city's plight. Investigations by the UN and other military experts count among these self-inflicted actions the "bombing of the bread queue" (May 27), the "shelling" of Douglas Hurd's visit (July 17), the "explosion in the cemetery" (August 4), and the killing of ABC producer David Kaplan (August 13). In all these cases, Serbian forces were out of range, and the weapons actually used against the victims were not those claimed by the Bosnian authorities and the Western media.

It worked. Twice NATO bombed Yugoslavia and "the civilized world" demanded the ouster of a war criminal dictator with genocidal intentions. As they (had us) perceived it, anyway. Would they (have us) be burned by such murderous trickery again? Given the chance, yes.


Mountain Practice, Urban Execution
This Libyan Civil War has seen a steady stream of questionable incidents like these, brutal and logic-free attacks, real or "reported," on civilians, women, children, and the elderly, that demonstrate again and again why Gaddafi must go. Many of these are covered elsewhere at this site, but for now my focus is on the theater Mr. Belhaj worked before being appointed to run the invasion of the capitol.

The Daily Beast mentioned how Mr. Belhaj "organized and trained" his forces in the Nafusah (western) mountains, south and west of Tripoli. The rebels there are based in their stronghold of Az Zawiyah, later spreading control to other towns in all directions as NATO steadily ground down their opposition. By training and by practice, the rebels there might have been learning more than classic combat techniques.

The Nafusah region has witnessed at least two known but unsolved massacres in recent months, during the rebel expansion. First, six government soldiers, one beheaded, were found in a water basin by American journalist C.J. Chivers in early July. This was just outside Qawalish, which rebel forces had just taken, capturing many black men, suspected mercenaries, along the way. The rebels insisted Gaddafi's men had dumped their own murdered soldiers in the well, but Chivers and most everyone else remained unconvinced.

Then on August 5 a video surfaced of a mass grave of 34 victims dumped in what seems to be one of two tree farms also just outside Qawalish. The victims here are a hodge-podge: about 50% are black suspect mercenary types, with a few possible soldiers, and several local  civilians, Arab and Black, in traditional clothes, some apparently just teenage boys. This time, the rebels took the initiative, releasing the video through their conduits with a built-in claim they were again government victims, since the video was found on a captured soldier's mobile phones (they say).

The rebel violence had become known in the region to the point that when Qawalish fell, the civilians fled en masse, preferring not to be around as the "Freedom Fighters" liberated them. The military stayed and largely died, and as the tree farm mass grave suggests, some of the locals also weren't quick enough. Was Mr. Belhaj training his forces how to slaughter their captives, military and civilian, and pin the blame on their enemies?

After leading his forces north through several other cities to az Zawiyah and then Tripoli, commander Balhaj finally led the attack on the Bab al-Aziziya compund, and the surrounding holdout neighborhood of Abu Salim on August 25. Just outside the gates of Gaddafi's stronghold were discovered twelve bound and executed black men, long dead and trucked in just to dump there, the maggots and advanced decay suggest. It was blamed by rebels on Gaddafi's men, and when the rot is noticed, people might buy that, if they presume they were killed in Tripoli well before the rebels got there.

Right next to those old corpses, a medical tent where five loyalists, clearly civilians, plus about seven others nearby, were slaughtered freshly at some point on or near August 25. There's no specific blame yet, but it stands to reason whoever planted the black men there offed these witnesses, apparently by cutting their throats.

At the same time, Abu Salim trauma hospital, about one km south, had its staff just disappear around the time rebels took it over, blood spatters consistent with a head shots appeared on the floor, and a nearby canal suddenly hosted at least one floating doctor (see link). The "hospital" was then turned to a morgue, stuffed with over 100 dead bodies, primarily black men by the look of it, and some wounded. One body dumped outside, discolored with rot, has the flesh stripped from its forearm, elbow to wrist.

17 bodies, said to be of rebel supporters killed by the government, turned up in a morgue, hands and feet disfigured with torture. One body at least with eyes gouged out has been found. About 18 decaying bodies were found by a dry river bed nearby, a pile of at least five of them partly burned.

Several prisons wound up hosting blasted prisoners all of a sudden as rebels took them over, and up to 153 people, suspected rebel supporters it's said, were gunned down and blown up with grenades by the Khamis brigade in a shed near their HQ. 53 of the bodies were found charred to anonymity inside the shed on August 26 or 27, as the rebels allowed outsiders to have a look at the fleeing regime's brutality.

Someone is taking some vile idea to a bit of an extreme here.

A Cleansing Dialectic? 
The rebels have two main problems vis-a-vis the West's liberal vision they're expected to fulfill in Libya. There's the Gaddafi regime and its scattered loyalists on the one hand, and the hardcore Islamists in their own ranks on the other.

The Islamists will be sidelined eventually, but until now they've been pandered to with the NTC promise of Islamic Sharia law in Libya, in return for their help in the fighting. They have been useful, full of zeal and courage, willing to be martyred, and willing to commit unspeakable horrors on their enemies, sowing terror in their path, causing people to flee whole cities

Now I think the new rebel regime has decided to pit these two problems against each other, to use the Islamists against the loyalists and hope they kill each other off to some extent. Such a purgative bloodbath might only be capable in a place as deep and wide as Tripoli, and beyond that there's the looming battles for Sirte, Sabha, and other holdout cities providing more battlegrounds to smash these problems together.

Why Oil Might Be A Factor in the Libyan War

August 15, 2011
last update Sept. 4

In some minds, it's obvious - with the highest oil reserves in all Africa, around 44.3 bbn, Libya is the first African nation singled out by NATO's air forces for regime change, the enforcement of a popular revolution that wasn't popular enough. How could oil not be a factor?

But there is a case to be made that, unlike Iraq for example, American and Western companies were able to drill and make money in Libya's fields, and war wasn't the slightest necessary. This case is frequently made by those who support the war, and even by those who don't. For example, this otherwise strongly critical piece, sidelines the oil motive as a red herring to ignore:

(2) War for Oil or Oil for Sale?

The ‘critical’ Left’s favorite cliché is that the imperial invasion is all about “seizing control of Libya’s oil and turning it over to their multi-nationals”. This is despite the fact that US, French and British multinationals (as well as their Asian competitors) had already “taken over” millions of acres of Libyan oil fields without dropping a single bomb. For the past decade, “Big Oil” had been pumping and exporting Libyan oil and gas and reaping huge profits. Gaddafi welcomed the biggest MNC’s to exploit the oil wealth of Libya from the early 1990’s to the present day. [...] Clearly, with all the European and US imperial countries already exploiting Libya oil on a massive scale, the mantra that the “war is about oil” doesn’t hold water or oil!

As we'll see below, the line "had already “taken over” millions of acres of Libyan oil fields, the most crucial part in my opinion, is in question.

I admit I don't know about all the details in the part I snipped, the companies doing business there with various contracts, some going back to the 1990s. I won't try arguing that some business goes that far back, but from what I gather, the more serious drilling and profits we know of from recent years didn't start until later, around 2003-2004. This was part of the general rapprochement, with Libya paying up for the Lockerbie bombing they never committed, renouncing terrorism real or accused, and pursuing - if slowly - political reforms. In return, UN sanctions were ended, diplomatic relations were briefly possible, and there was an opening of the oil sector to outside profits. It didn't all have to go to Libya's people anymore.

Everyone remembers the BP lobbying to send "Lockerbie bomber" al-Megrahi home in order to keep the Libyans happy and secure off-shore exploration rights. Everyone remembers the flak they took last year, on top of their gulf oil spill disaster, when Mr. Megrahi did not die (or resurrect his appeal) within three months. They were despoiling nature AND making money in shady deals that freed terrorists, and people didn't like it.

Well, the companies didn't like that. How could they be happy with the bind dealing with Gaddafi's regime put them in? It was the only way to get at the oil, working with the internationally recognized government - and was losing vogue for some reason well before the war broke out.
the final straw, as Susan Lindauer noted in a worthwhile article, a development I can't otherwise verify but that makes enough sense I'll offer it for consideration.

About July, I started hearing that Gadhaffi was exerting heavy pressure on U.S. and British oil companies to cough up special fees and kick backs to cover the costs of Libya’s reimbursement to the families of Pan Am 103. Payment of damages for the Lockerbie bombing had been one of the chief conditions for ending U.N. sanctions on Libya that ran from 1992 until 2003. And of course the United Nations forced Gadhaffi to hand over two Libyan men for a special trial at The Hague, though everybody credible was fully conscious of Libya’s innocence in the Lockerbie affair. (Only ignorant politicians trying to score publicity points say otherwise.)

Knowing Gadhaffi as well as I do, I was convinced that he’d done it. He’d bided his time until he could extort compensation from U.S. oil companies. He’s a crafty bastard, extremely intelligent and canny. That’s exactly how he operates.
[...]
Last October, US oil giants— Chevron and Occidental Petroleum— made a surprising decision to pull out of Libya, while China, Germany and Italy stayed on, signing major contracts with Gadhaffi’s government.

Were they walking away from the oil, or from the regime atop of it? If the latter, how long did they plan to be away?

If the United States was waiting for a switchover, they knew when it happened, and it was almost automatic. The violent revolt started Feb 16, more or less, and nearly half the nation's cities and military equipment was in rebel hands by Feb  21 or so. On February 21, the Deputy ambassador to the UN decided to steal his post and hand it over to the unformed new government. Somehow his boss, the ambassador, and the rest of their staff, agreed, and somehow the US and the UN at large let them, encouraged them, and gave them hugs.

At the level of diplomatic recognition, Libya had just suffered a coup, its diplomats ecognized as representatives of "the Libyan people" as opposed to its (old) government that appointed them, soon asking someone to bomb their old bosses into history. The leaders of the emergent rebel council were primarily US and UK-educated "free market" activists. Recognized in a flash, in spirit if not on paper.

Only the problem of the reality inside Libya stood in the way, and thus we've had five months of increasingly intense bombing of Libya's cities to make that fit the cartoonish notions we formed in February.

Anyway, the oil hasn't started flowing yet, and that's been affecting the world economy. From there, I'd like to pass on a conversation I had at the JREF forum, on "Gaddafi's Useful Idiots," started by member Virus, owned by me. This conversation with member McHrozni was a sidetrack there. Lindauer's word would never play at the JREF, so I cited instead the Wall Street Journal.
---
Virus: How much oil has NATO stolen so far?

Caustic Logic: I never used the word steal, and it's only half-appropriate. "NATO" doesn't put it in a bag and walk away. But they serve the interests of theire home governments, who serve the interests of their oil companies.

Obviously the oil stays in the ground - of a country - with a leadership that decides the terms under which it's extracted. That's the part that's pretty well decided will change, and one of the few things the top rebel TNC leaders have in common is a known speciality in free-market economics, privatization, hostile takeovers, etc., earned in the US and UK mostly.

But why regime change? See below...

theprestige: If oil were a factor, why not quietly stay out of it? How has prolonging the conflict and reducing the chances of a decisive conclusion improved the belligerents' access to Libyan oil, either now or in the future?

Caustic Logic: In the short term, it's driven prices up, which helps some but hurts economies in short and mid-term, etc. (as I gather). So they take a hit, tap into the reserves to ease the pain. Why? Is there some big gain to offset it?

Yes. The main point is questioning the bolded part. To keep access like the West has had, in experimental form since 2003, indeed no disruption would be easiest. But it's more than just access itself, it's the quantity, quality, nature, and context of that access that also factor in. These are big reserves we're talking about, close, potentially important, and every downside is multiplied by that scale.

What are the problems? Perception of working with or abetting a dictatorial and terrorist regime. Being forced (or attempted to be) by Tripoli to give a cut back to cover their expenses settling the Lockerbie case. That's context. The more important economic factors, per the Wall Street Journal ("no love lost")

"Libya has gone from the world's most exciting oil-exploration hot spot in 2005 to another geologically, politically and fiscally risky also-ran," says Charles Gurdon , a North Africa expert at Menas Associates, a consultancy.

[...]

Libya kept its crown jewels off limits to foreigners. The huge onshore oil fields that accounted for the bulk of its production remained the preserve of Libya's state companies. Yet without advanced foreign technology to improve oil-recovery rates, output at these big fields gradually declined, by as much as 6% a year in some cases.

[...]

Politics continually intruded, particularly in 2009, the year the Scottish authorities released Abdel Baset al-Megrahi , the Libyan imprisoned for his role in the bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, on compassionate grounds. The Canadian government expressed disapproval at the hero's welcome Mr. Megrahi received on his return to Tripoli. Shortly afterward, Libya told Petro-Canada, a Canadian company, to halve production from its Libyan fields. Libya said the reduction was needed to make sure Libya was in compliance with OPEC quotas. But other companies weren't targeted, analysts say.

[...]

Gradually, foreign oil companies' interest in Libya faded. When Libya offered them the right to bid on exploration tracts in December 2007, half of the blocks attracted no bids.

A clutch of companies left Libya as their five-year exploration licenses began to expire, among them Chevron Corp., BG Group PLC and Australia's Woodside Petroleum Ltd.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/for...bya-2011-04-14

The bolded are among the things you can expect look to change under the new government. Not that it's a motive for war, or a motive to be too trusting of flawed rebel reports that take us there. It's just a predictable and very positive side-effect.

And lest anyone say it must be about more than oil, of course it is. There's also water privatization (GMMR), nipping pan-Africanism and keeping the continent safe for AFRICOM, privatizing the massive state services currently (or 'til recently) enjoyed by most Libyans, opening up the state-owned and debt-free central bank (assets frozen by western powers, controlled by the freezors), and perhaps most important setting an example for other would-be challengers of Western hegemony.

McHrozni: If the west was after easy oil, aiding Quackdaffi would be the most prudent course of action. Why wasn't that pursued? Please come up with something plausible and specific.


Caustic Logic: I did. See above. He was keeping too much back for the people of Libya, refusing access to most of it, tossing out strange terms they weren't happy with, and companies were giving up and leaving. They'll get interested again as soon he's gone.


That "oil interests would have us do nothing" canard is getting real old and thin, but everyone seems to buy it anyway. Anything to convince oneself there logically cannot be any ulterior motives here, in the one alleged gov't massacre of 2011 we're hell-bent on punishing to oblivion...

McHrozni: If I add a condition that the explanation must not be based on fiction, will you see that as moving goal posts?

Caustic Logic: On top of completely missing the explanation when asking for an explanation, I would consider that silly move akin to trying to hide the goal posts under a paper napkin. Do you have any proof Mr. Chazan's article, published in the Wall Street Journal April 15, is a work of fiction?

McHrozni:

"Libya has gone from the world's most exciting oil-exploration hot spot in 2005 to another geologically, politically and fiscally risky also-ran," says Charles Gurdon, a North Africa expert at Menas Associates, a consultancy.

It seems to me that the Arab spring damaged oil interests to a considerable degree.

Caustic Logic: No, the problems cited were unfolding in 2008 and so, not after the Arab Spring.

McHrozni: I'm not buying the subscription to get the article. Why don't you cite something I can get for free? If it was obvious it should be everywhere, no?

Caustic Logic: The link I gave to a re-posting that's available for free. That's why I used that instead of a verifiably primary source. It's a small gamble that's usually worth it. Either way, do you have any evidence that the article is fiction-based? Is the growing rift between Tripoli and big oil that preceded the civil war made-up nonsense, or does Chazan maybe have a point? Just how big the point is is another issue - first, is it even a valid observation?

If not, why not?

McHrozni: I didn't see it then, can you re-post it please?

Caustic Logic:It was post 128. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/for...bya-2011-04-14

McHrozni: Thanks. Indeed, telling.

At the same time, companies that had made such expensive commitments in Libya'sEPSA-IV licensing rounds were facing a big problem: there was little oil. Firms drilled nearly 600 wells in Libya from 2006 to 2009 and made just 27 oil discoveries, mostly small, according todata from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

While probably not based on fiction, it's also a fact that the article clearly states that Quackdaffi and his quacky state was only part of the problem.

Caustic Logic: I predicted you would do that - that article is full of facts that point one way and characterizations that point another. Now go back and look at where they were allowed to drill and not allowed. Is this an example of Gaddafi's system limiting foreign oil companies, in such a way as might be fixed with regime change, or is Libya almost out of oil, to the point where no one cares?

Or was I misreading the counter-point? If Gaddafi's only part of the problem, what in your mind is the remainder, or the large part you think you've identified? Low oil reserves, poor drilling techniques, what?

McHrozni: A bit of both. Libya certainly isn't as full of oil as some suggest, and Quackdaffi is, well, Quackdaffi and abuses what power he has for his own good. Certainly bad, but also quite certainly not worthy of a military intervention - especially not worthy of one where you'll have little say about what happens in the country after your side wins.

You were implyingthat the intervention happened because of oil interests, right?

Caustic Logic:

A bit of both. Libya certainly isn't as full of oil as some suggest,

Not to argue further down this side-track, but you haven't shown that and I still suspect oil bulk IS there as always and IS therefore a factor one can't help considering if one considers the factors at stake.

You were implyingthat the intervention happened because of oil interests, right?

In part only, I should think. I agree a gripe like that is no cause for war, or at least not strong enough a one to have pushed near as hard as they have. I'd guess that it would go into a mix of considerations.

There are a host of other issues, economic, political, geo-strategic, by which the overall mood towards Libya would be measured. Would we mind if it fell under a bus? Should we give a little shove, a big shove?

McHrozni:

Not to argue further down this side-track, but you haven't shown that and I still suspect oil bulk IS there as always and IS therefore a factor one can't help considering if one considers the factors at stake.

Believe what you want, it's a free medium.

There are a host of other issues, economic, political, geo-strategic, by which the overall mood towards Libya would be measured. Would we mind if it fell under a bus? Should we give a little shove, a big shove?

If oil interests were crucial, a big shove would be called for, to ensure the control of the interests. This isn't what happened.
---

And I was happy to leave it there. McHrozni can believe we aren't really shoving to topple the government in favor of a specific replacement. And if we were, it wouldn't be about oil, since we were already doing fine drilling there, until this war started for noble reasons and stopped the insane profits. And the oil was running out anyway, or something. I can agree to disagree with that, and even let him have the last word.
---
Update Sept. 4: Glenn Greenwald, a strangely perceptive and incisive commentator for being American, had this same line of thought under control back in June at Salon. "In a pure coincidence, Gaddafi impeded U.S. oil interests before the war." Actually, the meat of that is a separate, highly-quoted article from the Washington Post, which said in part:

even before armed conflict drove the U.S. companies out of Libya this year, their relations with Gaddafi had soured. The Libyan leader demanded tough contract terms. He sought big bonus payments up front. Moreover, upset that he was not getting more U.S. government respect and recognition for his earlier concessions, he pressured the oil companies to influence U.S. policies.
[...]
By November 2007, a State Department cable noted "growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism." It noted that in his 2006 speech marking the founding of his regime, Gaddafi said: "Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them. Now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money." His son made similar remarks in 2007.
[...]
Yet when representatives of the rebel coalition in Benghazi spoke to the U.S.-Libya Business Council in Washington four weeks ago, representatives from ConocoPhillips and other oil firms attended, according to Richard Mintz, a public relations expert at the Harbour Group, which represents the Benghazi coalition. In another meeting in Washington, Ali Tarhouni, the lead economic policymaker in Benghazi, said oil contracts would be honored, Mintz said.

"Now you can figure out who’s going to win, and the name is not Gaddafi," Saleri said. "Certain things about the mosaic are taking shape. The Western companies are positioning themselves."

"Five years from now," he added, "Libyan production is going to be higher than right now and investments are going to come in."

The Tripoli Massacres: Planted Bodies?

September 1, 2011
last update Sept. 13

Note Sept. 13: The following is a thought I had that may be of value, and may not. See the end note for more details.

Old Kills
Among the Tripoli massacres, I turn now to the approximately twelve victims of the fighting in Tripoli shown by many cameras now at a grassy lot in the Abu Salim neighborhood. They're black-skinned men, at least two of them bound hands-behind with plastic ties and executed. These were seen on August 25, the same day rebels first swept through Abu Salim, following another NATO bombing there.

Dan Rivers from CNN (broadcast, August 25), said "We don't know what happened to these people, whether they were executed by the rebels or, or what." He also noted, in a slightly different report, they looked like "Gaddafi fighters" (being "black Africans"), and more explicitly suggested the rebels had killed them.

But he also said, in the first link, that the area was "awful to see and smell." I thought, even from a distance, they looked a bit stiff, perhaps discolored and "ill." Ate last two seem bloated (though on closer look one of them is a rare fat Libyan). In the August heat the stench of death may settle in quicker than I thought, but ... the same day? It seemed possible that these people were killed some days prior to this footage being shot.

To help settle this, I searched around for images, and I found some amazing high-resolution photos of atrocities around Abu Salim at the Wordpress site Stop War Crimes!. The first image (at left, and here at full resolution) is of two of these victims, close up, thousands of pixels per side. It's the two in red and white undershirts, laid heads-together with the obvious plastic ties, pulled very, very tight, we can see.

It confirms brilliantly my suspicion that the bodies were certainly not today's-kill fresh. Others needn't look close, but I did. Either or both of them might have some kind of burning injuries prior to binding, especially the left body's left arm. But on both bodies, the skin of the hands and forearms is cracking and peeling away like onion skin, showing discolored layers of decay - and perhaps even bone - underneath. Both are crawling with hundreds of maggots on the skin, and brightly colored flies or beetles on the seats of their pants. Their hands are discolored and bloated, fingers deeply blackened. The left body has a mysterious layer of brown slime beneath his arms, where the skin of his lower back should be.

I'm no expert on these things, but I think these guys had already been dead at least a week before they were seen on this grass on August 25.

Of the other photos shown at Stop War Crimes!, both also huge resolution, and all given as August 25. One of them (full resolution) is of five people killed in a medical tent (previously reported). They wear loyalist green cloths on their wrists, and were freshly slaughtered, injured and tending alike. No mercy for those who refused to embrace "the revolution" at their gates. This is a rebel war crime, plain as day.

But the other image (full res) shows a small pile of at least five people, apparently not black, some in camouflage pants but not clearly soldiers (one has the boots too, but one is fat). They're on the sandy ground outside some walled compound, doused in some kind of oil and partially burnt (one visible face is grisly). These bodies, like those at the roundabout, seem to be a bit decomposed and discolored as well, prior to burning. In both cases where decay is involved, things get more complicated.

Significance
If the bodies were dead before the rebels ever got there, a natural presumption is they were killed by those in charge there prior - the Gaddafi regime. I predict this will be announced fairly soon, to some perplexity. "But Gaddafi hires the black men," people think (wrongly, for the most part), "and the rebels kill them, regrettably but understandably." (see some of the videos to see how understandable they are) I predict the rebel/PR drone explanation for these long-dead black men will be this:

"These were mercenaries that the racist user of black men, Muammar Gaddafi, felt were "expendable." He had them killed just to drop in the Freedom Fighters' path, to frame them as horrible negro-killers!"

The rebel forces across "free Libya" have on their own earned quite a reputation (if under-reported) for anti-black racism and summary killings, torture, etc. I always figured they'd need to address and "correct" this PR problem some day. And this decay-enabled claim might let them lamely say the whole notion was regime propaganda. "They were the ones sending black guys against us, and here even killing them and blaming us! Just look at the decay, they were dead before we got there! We have black members of the rebellion, see? Black people, and Africa, love us! We're really okay!"

But if this is a frame-up, it's not to the rebels' credit that, aside from the rot, it would work so well. These people still look, even to a mainstream media journalist who was smelling them, like the ones rebels love to kill, in the way they're known to do it.

Think about it this way: if a killing were to happen just before the rebels entered, it would be hard to prove with any precision they weren't killed just after they rolled in. But if the decay is advanced enough, it would make the perfect cover - so long as we all just presume the killing happened where the bodies were found. And pinning this on Gaddafi's forces - like so many other bogus charges have been pinned - requires that presumption.

They could have been executed by the rebels in any one of their many atrocities on the long road to Tripoli (nearby az Zawiyah is popping to mind). If the killing and the filming are separated by days of time, why not by miles of space? If they had surplus dead bodies to explain (likely), and too many "Gaddafi" mass graves in their wake already (only a few of them publicly known yet, in Qawalish, Qawalish, and Tawergha), they could solve both problems and get a further, twofold advantage quite simply. They might truck in a few dozen corpses, or more, and basically plant them on Gaddafi by tossing them about inside and around his compound and strongholds.

That probably sounds pretty insane to most, but sadly, it's just not so. It makes entirely too much f***ing sense.

Nonetheless, expect the "truth" to emerge (as it is) that the regime was killing like crazy for a week or so before the rebel attack, to suppress the masses and, perhaps, even to give the rebels a bad name along the way as racists. But the maggots prove that, all fears aside, the rebels must have actually interrupted a bloodbath in Tripoli and thus saved countless lives!

Such a handy illusion, all at their disposal with some ingenuity and the simple by-product of their bestial bloodbath across Libya.

Note Sept. 13: Apparently the battles around Abu Salim had been going on for some couple of days prior to the filming of Aug 25, and I can't rule out 2-3 days decay. Though earlier I said it was at least a week, one reader at least contested that, suggesting as little as one day may have passed. I'll say as few as two days, perhaps, but still no expert. These guys are:
http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1098&context=utk_gradthes

The bodies which had more sun exposure took longer to display insect activity than those bodies in the shadier areas."
"By the afternoon of Day 1 some initial signs of decomposition were present, including marbling on the legs and some fly activity around the head (Figure 6). By Day 2 the marbling was also apparent on the arms, and some skin slippage was noted. Fly activity was also much more prevalent. Maggot activity was first noted on Day 4, and appeared to peak around Day 8 (Figure 7). Bloat was noted on Day 6.

"
We have bodies that seem by the burn, cracking skin, to have been exposed to sun, suggesting day 4 or later. Some bodies were bloated, suggesting day 6 or so. The studies in that PDF were done in Tennessee, which is quite different from Libya. That's my research for now.

So the possibility of local combat death for these rotting black men is there, but strange. The victims at the medical tent right next to the dump were clearly killed days later than them, likely just hours before the cameras rolled in. Why were they giving medical care for days while leaving so many rotting bodies just outside the tent, not even covered? I still suspect planting as outlined, but the rationale is slightly less clear than I at first thought.