Libya - civil unrest & now NATO involvement

[Idaho]

Sober as a judge you liberal puritan presbo freak.

This is ernesto speak for "I haven't had a drink yet today, but I'm still pissed from last night".

 

[Divisive Cotton]

You truly are a master of debate.

remind me about that saying glass houses and stones?

 

[Lock&Light]

You truly are a master of debate.

When are you finally going to grow bored with being a prat?

 

[audiotech]

'Mounting evidence of CIA ties to Libyan rebels.'

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27817.htm

 

[audiotech]

7.50 in - Very prophetic words from Muammar Gaddafi.

 

[butchersapron]

Two important stories for the price of one:

Why is the Fed Bailing Out Qaddafi?

Barack Obama recently issued an executive order imposing a wave of sanctions against Libya, not only freezing Libyan assets, but barring Americans from having business dealings with Libyan banks.

So raise your hand if you knew that the United States has been extending billions of dollars in aid to Qaddafi and to the Central Bank of Libya, through a Libyan-owned subsidiary bank operating out of Bahrain. And raise your hand if you knew that, just a week or so after Obama’s executive order, the U.S. Treasury Department quietly issued an order exempting this and other Libyan-owned banks to continue operating without sanction.

I came across the curious case of the Arab Banking Corporation, better known as ABC, while researching a story about the results of the audit of the Federal Reserve. That story, which will be coming out in Rolling Stone in two weeks, will examine in detail some of the many lunacies uncovered by Senate investigators amid the recently-released list of bailout and emergency aid recipients – a list that includes many extremely shocking names, from foreign industrial competitors to hedge funds in tax-haven nations to various Wall Street figures of note (and some of their relatives). You will want to see this amazing list when it comes out, so please make sure to check the newsstands in two weeks’ time.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Not an April Fool's joke?

 

[Divisive Cotton]

I see this uncovering is the work of Bernie Saunders:

When I first started working on this story, one of Sanders’s aides was careful to point out the ABC loans. Later, I took a closer look at the company and found that it was 59% owned by the Central Bank of Libya, which I found very odd, even by the generally insane standards of the bailout era. Why, I wondered, would the Federal Reserve be giving Muammar Qaddafi $26 billion in near-zero interest loans? Exactly how does that address America’s financial problems? What bailout plan could that possibly be part of?

 

[Divisive Cotton]

There's a couple of explanations in the comments:

There is no secret in this matter. All the information can be found on the Arab Banking Corporation (ABC) and bloomberg web sites. According to the later, numerous foreign banks took advantage of the historically low interest rates of the Federal Reserve loans during that period. ABC was one of them and the Bloomberg headline states that it borrowed at least $5billion. All that it borrowed has been paid back with interest. US and European banks borrowed a lot more, hundreds of billions of dollars, and those also have been paid back. It was purely a commercial transaction between the banks and Qaddafi had nothing to do with it. At that time, Libya had developed collaborative relations with the US and its central bank held 29 percent share in the ABC. Its share increased to 59 percent later, after it bought out Abu Dhabi’s share. Kuwait is the other major share holder, along with some others. It is a Bahrain based bank, with branches all over the world, including the US. Its New York branch helps American companies conduct business in the Middle East.

This is pure sensationalism. The loans were given to the ABC before the sanctions. The Central Bank of Libya is only one of the components of ABC.

 

[butchersapron]

All that says is that the transactions/arrangements were put in place before the new raft of sanctions - the story though is them being exempted from those sanctions.

 

[TruXta]

That is a bit weird, granted. Says here that

the exemption sought to prevent "undo disruption to third-party commerce."

While Libya's central bank retains its majority ownership stake, the Arab Banking Corporation cannot do business with any Libyan government institution, the Treasury official said, and the central bank can't liquidate its stake since it has been sanctioned by the United States and European Union.

 

[Casually Red]

A rebel press conference, with english transcript, that involves a lot of bitching about NATO, and then it goes pearshaped because someone starts shouting 'you killed our children and families'!

http://www.libyafeb17.com/2011/04/t...t-major-general-abdulfatah-younis-gave-today/

holy shit , that treacherous twat has actually gone and made me feel sorry for NATO , just for a second . What a dick . NATO have expended umpteen squillion quids worth of munitions on the place , even bombing Ghadaffis house and he's calling them a bunch of useless cunts who are doing nothing except for getting in the way . To hear that coming from a guy who without a shadow of a doubt would be having his last cigarrette right now against a wall only for NATO saving his bacon only reinforces my view that these assholes deserve all they get .
Mind you by the sounds of it some of his own side might get round to it before long .

 

[Divisive Cotton]

The guy on the BBC news is saying that the rebel army is still a chaotic mess.

The former Gadaffi soldiers have actually excluded a number of more volatile one's from the frontline which, in turn, has lead to problems as the excluded kick off about being excluded.

 

[Casually Red]

This thread's turned into a mixture of Stalinist shrine and nuthouse. Utterly bizarre

you oaf , Marshall Tito and Joe Stalin were deadly enemies .Yugoslavia wasnt even in the warsaw pact - highlighting Yugoslavia and Libyan ties through the Non Aligned Movement should have been a slight clue .It spent a long time besieged by it on one side and the yanks and brits on the other . Stalin vowed to invade Yugoslavia as soon as he got the Korea business out of the way but thankfully popped his clogs . Meanwhile Tito quite effectively purged Yugoslavia of Stalinists . Him and Ghadaffi were great mates .

 

[Casually Red]

The guy on the BBC news is saying that the rebel army is still a chaotic mess.

The former Gadaffi soldiers have actually excluded a number of more volatile one's from the frontline which, in turn, has lead to problems as the excluded kick off about being excluded.

only a mater of time before they start whacking each other . Divvying up the proceeds from that oil theyve half inched could well see it kick off .

 

[ernestolynch]

Royalists vs AQIM LOL SAS caught in crossfire.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Brother Leader has sent a begging letter to Obama: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/06/gaddafi-obama-nato-libya

Please don't pick on us Barrack

 

[Casually Red]

'Mounting evidence of CIA ties to Libyan rebels.'

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27817.htm

wheres Dylans and his genuine revolutionaries taking a bit of a wrong turn now ? As every day passes this thing seems more and more pre planned , like what happened Chavez in Caracas . Almost identical . A media blitz unquestioningly accusing him of massacring his own people preceding an attempted coup led by all manner of reactionary fuckwits looking to get their hands on the oil . With the trail leadin right back to the states .
Now that it seems certain Foreign minister Kusa was an agent of imperialism , the apparently spontaneous raft of defections of ambassadors , who as foreign minister and intelligence bigwig he'd either have selected personally or otherwise had great influence over - defections over massacres that never occured at the hands of an airforce that never bombed and mercenaries that never existed - stinks of a pre arranged plot to me .

Anyway , just like Fidel history seems to have vindicated me, except much quicker . I was right all along .

 

[Casually Red]

Brother Leader has sent a begging letter to Obama: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/06/gaddafi-obama-nato-libya

Please don't pick on us Barrack

no , he's pointed out that he's aware the US military have distanced themselves from the physical bombardment - unlike others -and told him he wont pick on them

 

[Casually Red]

Royalists vs AQIM LOL SAS caught in crossfire.

rofl pmsfl

 

[Casually Red]

7.50 in - Very prophetic words from Muammar Gaddafi.

indeed , and a hell of a lot of sense and truth spoken there too .

 

[IC3D]

rofl pmsfl

Casually Ranting you never post anything other than you're fantasies.

Britain may now be behind arming the Libyan rebels, but lawmakers in London are furious that their colleagues allowed weapons to be sold to the Gaddafi regime, as recently as last year. It's among several Arab nations who bought firepower from the UK - which later saw uprisings. The ministers accuse them of misjudging whether those guns would be turned on civilians, as Laura Emmett explains.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DefXaFnEPh0&feature=player_embedded#at=128[/video]

 

[Casually Red]

the point was to sell them only stuff thats of little use against the people who sold it to them . If they were truly furious why werent they furious at the time they sold it ? They arent furious , just mildly embarassed , and are throwing a few shapes to distract attention . To pre-empt any awkward questions in the House later on .
If you believe anything else your the one in a fantasy world .

 

[weltweit]

Britain is changing 4 tornados over to ground attack roles rather than no-fly operations in response to concerns that Misrata is not getting enough protection.

An oil tanker has left Tobruk full of rebel oil which is likely to fill their coffers.

Migrant boat sinks off Libya; at least 200 missing

 

[dylans]

wheres Dylans and his genuine revolutionaries taking a bit of a wrong turn now blah blah. Gaddafi is great blah blah.

So fucking bored of your shit now. But one more time. Let me get this right. You are arguing that this uprising in its entirety was a CIA conspiracy. In its entirety. There was no popular uprising by the citizens of Benghazi. None nothing zip. no demonstrations. No camping outside the courthouse, no fighting hot water cannon. no dodging live bullets. No stones against machine guns. All the footage that we saw in the early days was fiction. This is what you are arguing right?

The Libyan people in their entirety either all love Gaddafi or they are all treasonous CIA tools. This is what you are arguing right. Not that this uprising is a genuine movement that has been manipulated and hijacked. Not that its leadership expresses reactionary positions. No, you are arguing that there is no mass movement at all and that everyone who takes part is the enemy. That the entire event is a Western conspiracy and has absolutely nothing to do with any desire of a people not to want to live under the heel of a dictatorship. The entire crisis, from February 15th to now is merely the result of a policy of western engineered regime change This is your line right?

Because it has to be. To follow your line that Gaddafi the dictator is the revolutionary and those fighting his repression are all CIA tools. Every person with his head blown off by heavy ma.chine guns in the early days of the Benghazi uprising. The unarmed demonstrators camped outside the Benghazi courthouse. The unarmed demonstrators who took out a barracks with bulldozers and stones and siezed weapons. They must all be dismissed or smeared or condemned. How dare revolutionaries sieze weapons. They are either all counter revolutionary agents of the west and they all deserve to be crushed by Gaddafi or the events I discribe didnt happen. Nothing that has taken place from the first days has in anyway been an expression of popular desire of any section of the population to rid themselves of Gaddafi No such popular desire exists. In this view then the entire population of Benghazi is in the pay of the west. The entire population are merely Islamists, CIA stooges or monarchists. The entire population of that city are incapable of wanting democratic rights and anyway they dont deserve them

I would agree with you that if this was the case. If there was no popular uprising in Benghazi. If the footage the world saw of guys with stones facing down machine guns didnt take place then you would be right. If the footage the world saw of unarmed demonstrators with their heads literally blown off by heavy machine gun fire were fake then you would be right. If the footage of mass demonstrations in Benghazi were false If the uprising in Benghazi wasn't a genuine mass supported uprising to overthrow a deservedly hated police state then you would be right.

But you are not only wrong. You would have to be fucking lunatic conspiraloon to believe that crap. The entire crisis from start to finish the result of a carefully conspired Western plan to overthrow Gaddafi.? The entire crisis has nothing to do with the wishes of at least large sections of the Libyan population. ?

Do me a favour. Until this uprising began the west had no reason to want him gone. They had worked for years to bring him into the gang. He was pals with the lot of them. It was only once this uprising began that the west leaped to take sides only to find they had been premature. Western intervention now is to prevent the victory of a man they have bet on to fall. They gambled on the uprising winning and it didnt now they have burned their bridges. This is the reason for Western intervention and it is a far cry from claiming the west started the entire thing

Ok bored now that will do. i dont think I am going to engage with you anymore cus your a bit of a wanker

 

[pocketscience]

no , they didnt . They were breifly offered german assistance though . Just as they had been during the first one .

Nice attempt to sweep that one under the carpet but, let's hear the full storey.
Sean Russell (the leader of the IRA at the time) accepted the offer, went on a training mission provideded by the Wehrmacht in Germany where he subsequently negotiated arms shipments via Uboots to the West Coast of Ireland.
The IRA does love a fascist dictator as bedfellow and seemingly doesn't do lessons learned exercises.

IRA/Nazi Collaboration

"Russell, elated by the prospect of German arms..."

 

[dylans]

Nice attempt to sweep that one under the carpet but, let's hear the full storey.
Sean Russell (the leader of the IRA at the time) accepted the offer, went on a training mission provideded by the Wehrmacht in Germany where he subsequently negotiated arms shipments via Uboots to the West Coast of Ireland.
The IRA does love a fascist dictator as bedfellow and seemingly doesn't do lessons learned exercises.

IRA/Nazi Collaboration

Actually I don't really have a problem with the IRA getting guns off the Germans, (or off Gaddafi for that matter)The Arabs did the same thing. Why should they care about the security of a colonial regime that is occupying them. The enemy of my enemy etc. What is important is that they keep their independance and didnt adopt the ideologies of those whose aid they sought and as far as I know they didnt. Hate to say it but I agree with Gaddafi boy on this one

 

[elbows]

'Mounting evidence of CIA ties to Libyan rebels.'

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27817.htm

I thought the Guardian article was illuminating in places. After describing the contradictory rebel statements as to whether Younis remained in charge of the rebel military or whether Haftar was now the man, it went on to describe some details about their past and the current dynamics.

Haftar is popular among some of the civilian volunteers who make up the bulk of the rebel forces because of his long opposition to Gaddafi.

After the Chad war, he was recruited as commander of an anti-Gaddafi force put together by the CIA and funded in part by Saddam Hussein. When that failed, Haftar moved to Virginia where he lived for 20 years not far from the CIA headquarters, raising questions among his present critics about how close past ties remain.

Some members of the revolutionary political leadership say Haftar returned to Libya with a swaggering arrogance and an expectation that he would automatically be put in charge of the armed fight against Gaddafi.

"We defined the military leadership before the arrival of Haftar from the United States," said Abdul Hafidh Ghoga, vice president of the Interim National Council. "We told Mr Haftar that if he wants, he can work within the structure that we have laid out."

There is equivalent detail about the history, position & feelings towards Younis in the full article too.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Can't be bothered to wade through pages of stalinist crap. What is the consensus among non loon anti imperialists? Do we still support the rebels or are they now effectively the stooges of the west? Quite clearly they weren't at one point but surely it would be hard to argue that NATO intervention hasnt changed the whole game?

 

[dylans]

Can't be bothered to wade through pages of stalinist crap. What is the consensus among non loon anti imperialists? Do we still support the rebels or are they now effectively the stooges of the west? Quite clearly they weren't at one point but surely it would be hard to argue that NATO intervention hasnt changed the whole game?

The revolution is dead. Western intervention has killed it just as surely as Gaddafis tanks had rolled through Benghazi. The rebellion has failed to win Tripoli and Western intervention has made that impossible now Any rebel military victory in the Capital will only be made against the wishes of half the country. It will be seen as conquest not liberation and it will result in the replacement of Gaddafi by another dictatorship. One that the West likes.