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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Fri Aug 05 2011 - 23:57:29 EDT
End Game For Benghazi Rebels As
Libyan Tribes Prepare To Weigh In
*By Franklin Lamb*
03 August, 2011
*Countercurrents.org*
*Tripoli : *On July 30, the day before this 97.5 per cent Muslim country
began the holy month of Ramadan, NATO spokesperson Roland Lavoie has been
lamely attempting to explain to the press at the Rixos Hotel and
internationally, why NATO was forced to bomb three Tripoli TV towers at the
Libyan Broadcasting Authority, killing three journalists/technicians and
wounding 15 others. Like most people currently in central Tripoli, this
observer was awakened at 1:50 a.m. by the first of a series of nine blasts,
three of which I watched from my balcony as they happened, and which seemed
to be about 800 yards away as I saw one TV tower being blown apart. On the
four lanes' divided highway adjacent to my hotel and below my balcony, that
runs along the sea front, I could see two cars frantically swerving left and
right as they sped along, presumably trying to avoid a NATO rocket, fearing
they themselves might be targeted.
According to NATO spokesperson Lavoie, allowing Libya’s population to watch
government TV, and by implication, to hear terrorist public service
announcements concerning subjects such as gasoline availability, food
distribution for Ramadan, updates on areas to be avoided due to recent NATO
bombing, prayers and lectures by Sheiks on moral and religious subjects
during Ramadan or see the Prayer Times chart posted on government TV, during
this month of fasting, plus children’s programs and normal programming, had
to stop immediately.
The reason to bomb Libyan government TV, according to NATO is that Libyan
leader Ghaddafi has been giving interviews and speeches following repeated
NATO bombings which recently have included hospitals, Ramadan food storage
warehouses, the nation’s main water distribution infrastructure, private
homes, and more than 1,600 other civilian sites. NATO believes that
preventing Qaddafi’s use of Libya’s public airwaves by bombing transmission
towers is within UN resolutions 1970 and 1973, the scope of which are being
expanded beyond all recognition from their original intent. NATO
spokesperson Lavoie claims that Libya’s leadership is using TV broadcast
facilities to thwart NATO’s “humanitarian mission” and, yet again are,
“putting civilian lives at risk.”
Government officials admit using the media for communication with the
population, including to urge tribal unity, to dialogue with those based in
Benghazi referred to here as “NATO rebels”, to argue for an immediate
ceasefire and yes, even to call for all Libyans to resist what many here,
including Colonel Ghaddafi, call “the NATO crusader aggressors.”
In western Libya, and even among many in the east, according to recent rebel
defectors who daily arrive on the western side, NATO has lost the respect of
this country, Africa, the Middle East and increasingly the international
community. The reasons are well known here and include the serial false
premises and descriptions of what happened in February in Benghazi and
Misrata areas.
In addition, NATO daily bombing strikes have increased approximately 20 per
cent since July 25 and will continue to increase according to French Defense
Minister Gerard Longuet who, along with UK Defense Minister Liam Fox, while
publicly saying NATO must continue the bombing, is privately expressing his
frustration with the killing of rebel military commander Abdul Fatah
Younnis. This assassination, according to Libyan officials was very likely
carried out by Younnis’ rebel leaders or Al Qaeda. Both are said to feel
that the rebel leadership in Benghazi is collapsing. So do many NATO leaders
and the Obama Administration.
A former senior member of Britain's Liberal Democratic Party, Sir Menzies
Campbell has just urged the UK government to rethink its involvement in the
war on Libya. Campbell said Britain must undertake a “wholesale
re-examination and review” of its involvement in the NATO conflict in Libya
after the murder of the opposition figure and Britain “must think about the
end-game of the conflict in Libya.
One Libyan government supporter, who just arrived here in Tripoli, claims he
spent the past two months on the ground in Benghazi “undercover” as a
liaison between the rebels and NAT0. He told his rapt audience at a Tripoli
hotel this week many details of what he claims is NATO’s frustration with
the deterioration, the corruption and incompetence of their “team” in the
east and the CIA view that “Al Qaeda will eat Mahmoud Jibril and the entire
rebel leadership for Iftar during one of the Ramadan feasts during August.
They are just waiting for the right opportunity to make a dramatic move and
take control.”
Only the zealots of “humanitarian intervention” could seriously have
contemplated the kind of protracted, bloody land war in Libya that would
have been necessary to win. So, the bet on an alliance with NATO now appears
to have been doomed from the start, even on its own terms.
The force that is rapidly entering into this conflict is the leadership of
Libya’s more than 2000 tribes. In a series of meetings in Libya, Tunisia and
elsewhere, the Tribal Council is speaking out forcefully and forging a
political block that is demanding an end to Libyans killing Libyans.
Generally considered Libya’s largest tribe, are the Obeidis to which the
Younnis family belongs. Some of the tribal leaders and members have vowed
revenge against rebel leaders and as they carried the coffins of Abdul Fatah
and his two companions they chanted, under the gaze of security forces, “the
blood of martyrs will not go in vain."
Libya’s Tribal Council has issued a manifesto which makes clear that it
intends to end this conflict, help expel “the NATO crusaders”, achieve
reforms while supporting the Gaddafi, Tripoli based government. Before
Ramadan is over, it intends to end Libya’s crisis even if it needs to rally
its hundreds of thousands of active members to march on Benghazi.
NATO, according to various academics at Al Nasser and Al Fatah University,
and Libya’s Tribal leadership, appear surprisingly ignorant and even
contemptuous of this country’s tribes and their historic roles during times
of crises and foreign aggression and occupation. One tribal leader well
known to Italy was Omar Muktar.
As NATO and its backers contemplate their End Game they may want to consider
some excerpts from the Libyan Tribal Council’s manifesto issued on July 26.
Speaking for Libya’s 2000 tribes, the Council issued a Proclamation signed
by scores of tribal leaders from eastern Libya.
“By this letter to the extraordinary African Summit, convening in Addis
Ababa, the notables of the Eastern tribes of the Great Jamahiriya confirm
their complete rejection of what is called the Transitional Council in
Benghazi which hasn't been nominated nor elected by Tribal representatives
but rather imposed by NATO.”
"What is called the Transitional Council in Benghazi was imposed by NATO on
us and we completely reject it. Is it democracy to impose people with armed
power on the people of Benghazi, many of whose leaders are not even Libyan
or from Libyan tribes but come from Tunisia and other countries.”
“The Trial Council assures its continuing cooperation with the African Union
in its suggestions aimed at helping to prevent the aggression on the Libyan
people”.…
“The Tribal Council condemns the crusader aggression on the Great Jamahiriya
executed by the NATO and the Arabic regressive forces which is a grave
threat to Libyan civilians as it continues to kill them as NATO bombs
civilian targets.”…
“We do not and will not accept any authority other than the authority that
we chose with our free will which is the People’s Congress and Peoples
Committees, and the popular social leadership, and will oppose with all
available means, the NATO rebels and their slaughter, violence and maiming
of cadavers. We intend to oppose with all the means available to us the NATO
crusader aggressors and their appointed lackeys”.
According to one representative of the Libyan Supreme Tribal Council, “The
tribes of Libya have until today not fully joined in repelling the NATO
aggressors. As we do, we serve notice to NATO that we shall not desist until
they have left our country and we will ensure that they never return.”
*Franklin Lamb* is in Libya and is reachable c/o *fplamb@gmail.com*
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