World Anti-militarism Newswire Archive

President Obama demanded regime change in Libya more than three weeks ago, but now acts as if that’s not his policy. He will use the assault on Muamar Khadafi’s forces to introduce so-called “humanitarian intervention” as an anchor of the Obama Doctrine. Regime change will remain a basic tool, while the “humanitarian” ruse expands imperial options. Obama may well opt to turn Libya into a kind of protectorate, as Haiti has become. Meanwhile, France interprets the UN mandate in Libya as allowing the Euro-Americans to act as air support for the rebel armed forces, as the French did at Benghazi.

The continuity between the Bush and Obama administration’s is now complete. Almost exactly eight years after Bush invaded Iraq, Obama’s Euro-American military alliance swooped down on Libya to enforce a western world order. “Obama definitely took a page out of the Bush administration recipe book,” including “peddling scary stories of poison gas stockpiled at a remote desert location.” All this may serve Obama well in domestic opinion polls, since “American blood lust is always just below the surface.”

Akbayan (Citizens Action Party) supports the democratic opposition in Libya that seeks to end the 43-year-old dictatorship of Muammar Ghadafie. It cannot, however, support the massive armed intervention launched by the United States, France, and Britain on Sunday, March 20.

Masquerading as "humanitarian intervention," Washington launched full-force barbarism on six million Libyans, all endangered by America's latest intervention.

Beginning March 19, it was visible. However, months of planning preceded it, including US and UK special forces and intelligence operatives on the ground enlisting, inciting, funding, arming and supporting violent insurrection to oust Gaddafi and replace him with a Washington-controlled puppet like in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Support vigil outside the US embassy, Grosvenor Square in solidarity with the five Disarm Now Plowshares activists about to face sentencing in the US for their major nuclear disarmament action in November 2009.

WHEN? Monday 28 March, 2011, 12noon-6pm
WHERE? US Embassy, 24 Grosvenor Square, London W1A 2LQ
(Bond Street / Marble Arch tube)
MAP:  http://london.usembassy.gov/embassy_location.html

The group of rogue US soldiers referred to themselves as a "kill team." Members of the group killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan and then posed for photographs with their victims. The US Army has now apologized for the incident after SPIEGEL published several images from the "kill team" in its new issue on Monday.

No to imperialist intervention in the Libya! Saudi, UAE troops out of Bahrain!
Support Middle Eastern democracy struggles! End imperialist wars in Iraq, Afghanistan!

Here is a compilation of newspaper front pages announcing the launch of the war on Iraq (2003) and the war on Libya (2011).

This is the text of a leaflet suggesting some reasons for opposition to the attack on Libya.

(The Most Intensive No Fly Zone You'll Experience...)
If you enjoy intensive, high-adrenaline air combats, you'll LOVE this game.

"U.S. and coalition vessels and aircrafts attacked Libya’s air defense systems in the opening phase of “Odyssey Dawn” the international operation to establish a no-fly zone, military officials said today.

A coalition of as many as 25 U.S., Canadian, and Italian vessels, including the USS Mount Whitney command vessel, led an attack that included U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles and aerial jamming, according to a Pentagon official"

 http://wri-irg.org/epublish/19/422

The uprisings in the Arab world have led to extreme violence in the country which has suffered the longest-standing and most repressive dictatorship of the Arab world. Due to the lack of information from the press, we suppose that the protests took place against repression on a smaller scale, perhaps at the hands of Libyan security forces who, when faced with the success of these uprisings, did not want to face their people. Therefore it is presumed that those who are using military strategies are mercenaries. It is very difficult to know where these soldiers are coming from and whether they form part of private military organisations, which are playing an increasingly important role in current armed conflicts. It is also difficult to know what arms we are talking about when we hear the news that fighter planes and helicopters are shooting at the civilian population. However, it is not impossible to find out this information.

Faslane peace camp back on the map the year of the grand re-opening

Where have NATO, Japanese, French, Chinese, Ukrainian, Canadian, US, UK, Australian, Indian, Russian nuclear waste been stored?

On March 14 Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Cooperation Council partner the United Arab Emirates deployed 1,000 troops, 500 security personnel and armored troop carriers across the 25-mile King Fahd Causeway to Bahrain to shore up their fellow monarchy after a month of protests against the Al Khalifa dynasty. The following day the Bahraini government declared a three-month state of emergency and authorized the military "to take necessary steps to restore national security." On March 16 government security forces staged a violent crackdown against protesters in the nation's capital with tanks, armored personnel carriers and helicopters, killing at least two people and injuring hundreds.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Bahrain three days before the launch of the Saudi military intervention. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, one of six used by Washington to patrol the world's seas and oceans, is headquartered near Manama, where between 4,000-6,000 American military personnel are stationed. Unlike Tunisia and Egypt, U.S. military partners but not hosts of American bases, Bahrain is vital to U.S. international military and energy strategy.

When the Bush administration went to war with Iraq in March 2003, the centerpiece of its justification for war was weapons of mass destruction. But its precise timing was driven, in large part, by the March 16 anniversary of the poison gas attack on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja. On the fifth and twentieth anniversaries of these two tragic events, a study of the connection between them reveals a deliberate pattern of twisting and fabricating intelligence to meet policy objectives.

"Libya is targeted because it is one among several remaining countries outside America's sphere of influence, which fail to conform to US demands. Libya is a country which has been selected as part of a military "road map" which consists of "multiple simultaneous theater wars". In the words of former NATO Commander Chief General Wesley Clark:
"in the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.... (Wesley Clark, Winning Modern Wars, p. 130)"

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/10/ira-eta-kurds-peace-summit

Sinn Féin activists to meet members of Sortu and Kurdish BDP in Venice to discuss negotiation tactics and dialogue with state Irish republicans will meet Kurdish and Basque separatists at a summit designed to encourage armed movements to adopt political dialogue and put an end to two conflicts that have cost thousands of lives.

Dalal al-Mughrabi, a Palestinian fighter who became a legend for many years, led a group of 12 fighters in one of the most talked about attacks against Israeli forces 33 years ago. “

Dalal is still seen by Palestinians and Arabs as a hero and an outstanding fighter. "Dalal will never be forgotten as she will remain an admirable symbol of the Palestinian women’s struggle and an example to be emulated by young Palestinian men and women who will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of Palestine” says her mother.

“Human Rights Watch singled out a severe retrogression in the status of women and girls, who under the secular dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party were “relatively better protected than other countries in the region.” Forced marriages, forced prostitution, domestic abuse and sexual abuse have all risen sharply in the years since the US invasion.”