CPC(M-L) HOME TML Daily Archive Le Marxiste-Léniniste quotidien

April 1, 2011 - No. 52

Election 2011

Canada Needs an Anti-War Government --
Vote Marxist-Leninist!


• The MLPC calls on Canadians to participate in this election by taking an active approach to their own empowerment

• The MLPC will continue to organize worker politicians to form an anti-war government

Election 2011
Canada Needs an Anti-War Government -- Vote Marxist-Leninist! - Press Release, MLPC

Imperialist Powers Must Stop Interfering in Libyan Civil War
Oppose U.S.-Led Liberal/Fascist Axis! - Hilary LeBlanc
Criminal Acts by the Harper Government -- Time to Draw the Line - Pierre Soublière
Canadian to Command NATO Mission -- Canada's Everlasting Shame
Study Finds Canada's Military Spending at Highest Point Since WWII
Canadian Military Exports to the Middle East & North Africa - Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade
Recent Developments
Libyan War and Control of the Mediterranean - Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO


Election 2011

Canada Needs an Anti-War Government --
Vote Marxist-Leninist!

In this election, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada will field about 70 candidates. With the addition of several more youth candidates, this is up from 59 in the 2008 election.

• The MLPC calls on Canadians to participate in this election by taking an active approach to their own empowerment.

The crux of the matter in the election is the contest between people striving for empowerment and the insistence of the establishment parties to use the election to block the people's movement for democratic renewal.

The electoral process and institutions in this country are called democratic but their very aim deprives the people of the conditions they require to exercise the rights that belong to them by virtue of being human, including a meaningful exercise of the right to elect and be elected. As a result, governments enact laws that benefit the monopolies at the expense of the interests of the people.

"Unless workers, seniors and youth make a concerted effort to keep the establishment parties out of power and put worker politicians who are active in working for democratic renewal into power, the crisis will continue to be sorted out in a manner that favours the rich, not the people," party leader Anna Di Carlo says. "The Marxist-Leninist Party calls on Canadians to make their voices heard by voting Marxist-Leninist," she adds.

• The MLPC will continue to organize worker politicians to form an anti-war government.

"Nothing reveals the corruption of the so-called democratic institutions more than the fact that all the parties which make up the cartel party system just voted unanimously to impose a variant of the same democratic system onto the people of Libya with tomahawk missiles," party leader Anna Di Carlo says.

"Even though the action has the stamp of legality conferred by the UN Security Council, it violates the UN Charter and is illegitimate and immoral. Canadians do not want a pro-war government. We call on them to recognize the need for an anti-war government by voting Marxist-Leninist," she says.

For information:
media@mlpc.ca • 416-253-4475 • www.mlpc.ca

Return to top




Imperialist Powers Must Stop Interfering in Libyan Civil War

Oppose U.S.-Led Liberal/Fascist Axis!


Cross-Canada anti-war demonstrations in February 2003 opposing U.S. plans to invade Iraq.

The U.S.-led war of aggression against the sovereign country of Libya marks a turning point. For U.S. imperialism, whatever the outcome, the attack has put a definitive end to several principles of international affairs that emerged with the victory over fascism in 1945. Most importantly, the U.S.-led axis has committed the supreme crime of breaking international peace not only with impunity but also with the approval of the United Nations and liberal public opinion.

NATO waged its war against Yugoslavia during the 1990s outside the approval of the United Nations. The U.S.-led war against Afghanistan began under a cloud of carefully-controlled hatred directed against a terrorist group that the Afghanistan state was allegedly protecting. The bombing and occupation were presented as a police operation and only later developed publicly into a war for control of resources and sphere of influence and beachhead for war against Pakistan. The U.S.-led war against Iraq was a creature of the "coalition of the willing" and quite broadly opposed by liberal public opinion as a breach of the post-WWII protocols protecting international peace and the sovereignty of nations. Massive demonstrations opposing the impending U.S. attack on Iraq were held throughout the world.

The war against the sovereign territory of Libya on the continent of Africa is different in many aspects first of which is that liberal public opinion has allied itself with the war. Almost no dissenting voices have arisen in any of the governing institutions within the U.S. axis, including Britain, France, Italy and various annexed territories. In Canada, not one member of Parliament for the official liberal or social democratic parties raised a voice against the use of lethal force to solve international or national problems. In the United Nations, the U.S. axis was allowed to overturn the UN Charter itself, brazenly violating several of its articles of which the most important is the prohibition against waging war on a sovereign member of the international community. An internal conflict became an excuse to unleash war against Libya. The U.S. axis rejected diplomacy to resolve the problem -- an alternative advanced by Venezuela and various African countries -- but instead launched an overwhelming predatory war. A consequence of this war, in flagrant defiance of international law, is that no sovereign country can turn to the United Nations Security Council for assistance when threatened by the U.S. axis or any other aggressor. The "right" of an imperialist country to invade a sovereign nation has once again been established in practice and approved by the Security Council, which effectively controls the UN.

Weaker countries are especially vulnerable, as the U.S. axis can use its resources to inflame internal conflicts and quite easily turn them into deadly affairs. The international media such as Al Jazeera play an important role in mobilizing public opinion for wars of aggression in particular to build a liberal/fascist alliance in support of war. But liberal/fascist public opinion would be of little importance without military backing. The U.S. imperialists have now constructed hundreds of military bases in strategic locations throughout the world. The attack on Libya is partly to establish a firmer military grip on North Africa without having to rely on Zionist Israel. Liberal/fascist Zionism has been replaced with open fascist Zionism and no longer has the same influence it once brandished. The liberal/fascism of Al Jazeera and others has now supplanted the role of liberal/fascist Zionism.

With the attack on Libya, the U.S. axis wants to extend its direct military reach along the southern coast of the Mediterranean. The U.S. military has already established a large military base on the north coast at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, a territory seized by the U.S. in its 1990s war to dismember Yugoslavia. It now has designs on the south coast probably an accessible area in the desert where it can build a military infrastructure and operate with impunity.

The regime that carries on in Libya whether led by Colonel Gadhafi or his opponents is mostly irrelevant to the U.S. imperialists other than for propaganda purposes. The country will be so weakened from the bombing and threats of more bombing that the U.S. axis can do whatever it wants, especially concerning the oil and gas resources and the establishment of a military base. A similar situation exists in Iraq and Afghanistan. An important feature for U.S. imperialism is the fear that this war has generated amongst the many divided countries of Africa and West Asia compelling the ruling elites to act with extreme caution, even those considered U.S. allies.

China, Germany, India and Brazil did not even vote in the UN to oppose the U.S.-led aggression against Libya let alone take a stronger stand such as imposing economic or other sanctions against the U.S. axis. This compliance or what used to be called "appeasement" with imperialist aggression sets up the world for larger and more dangerous wars that eventually will involve the bigger countries whether they like it or not. Empire building of the axis powers is not going to stop with Libya or any other African, West or Central Asian or East European country. Empire-building has only one aim in mind and that is world conquest. How are the people going to defend themselves and their natural resources under these circumstances? The U.S. axis is forcing the peoples everywhere to rely on their own human and material resources to defend their sovereignty and the rights of all and to build alliances with progressive public opinion throughout the world.

Within Canada, workers uphold the sovereignty of nations as a principle and worker politicians clearly say that to break the peace is the fundamental war crime. Worker politicians must work to create a Workers' Opposition which acts as a bulwark of progressive public opinion fighting to establish an anti-war government.

The working class has been taught a serious lesson with the war against Libya of which the most important is that workers must rely on their own thinking and organization to defend their rights and the rights of all including the rights of sovereign nations to live in peace and sort out their own problems without imperialist interference.

Liberal public opinion today necessarily finds expression in the neoliberal agenda of upholding monopoly right and this equates with fascism. The unfolding events teach the working class that if liberal public opinion is to play any positive role and stop its conciliation with fascism, the working class itself must take the lead in fighting for progressive public opinion. For this to happen the working class, seniors and youth must build a powerful and effective Workers' Opposition with its own thinking, agenda and instruments to disseminate its own views, and engage in actions with analysis that can establish an alternative in practice of which importantly is an anti-war government.

Return to top


 Criminal Acts Committed by the Harper Government -- Time to Draw the Line

The Harper government has once again involved Canada in acts of deadly aggression against yet another nation, that of Libya. The pretexts put forward to hasten the Gadhafi government's downfall and to set one up that is favourable to the imperialists -- "facilitate humanitarian aid," "protect civilians," etc. -- are so farfetched that one can only conclude that the arrogance of the imperialist forces, with the U.S. at the head, is such, that the crebilitity on which the pretexts are founded are no longer important as far as they are concerned.

In Quebec, certain newspaper editors from the Desmarais empire are making journalistic summersaults to explain that Harper is actually acting strategically so as to come out ahead in the election. It is said that the "overthrow of a tyrant" would give Harper the advantage of "collateral prestige" which would act as a counterweight to the numerous "Parliamentary drawbacks" he has experienced. One of his main objectives in participating in the "international" coalition -- let's not forget that the coalition is made up of a handful of countries, one of which Gadhafi's grandfather is said to have fought against at the time Libya was an Italian colony -- would be to "win points here at home." Thus, by having the support of opposition parties for a three month involvement "with the exception of ground troops," Harper has guaranteed the "legitimacy of Canadian involvement for three months, that is, for a period reaching beyond general elections."

By sanctioning this new warmongering adventure of the Harper government side by side with the U.S., but also with France and Great Britain, the Opposition parties have committed a serious mistake which causes great disservice to the Canadian people.

They seem to be suggesting that Harper, as "anti-democratic" and as "dictatorial" as he may be, is still capable of acting in a just and reasonable fashion when he involves Canada in criminal acts against Libya. In this way, one of the Harper government's main characteristics -- that is, resorting to violence to resolve national and international conflicts -- is completely set aside. Other related facts are also set aside in the process, such as the bestial brutality unleashed against more than a thousand individuals, in particular young people, involved or not as they were in the G20 demonstration in Toronto. These people -- whose experience was recently documented on a CBC report as well as by inquiries set up by union and community organizations, deeply preoccupied by the events, are still waiting for a government inquiry as well as for measures guaranteeing that those responsible for these acts be held accountable. Now that elections are called, the so-called major parties are happy with their usual soporific dose of "business as usual" which conveniently avoids addressing the criminal acts -- both national and international -- committed by the Harper government.

We cannot and should not accept that these criminal acts be denied just because the so-called major parties and official media declare that they are of no significance. We must concentrate our collective efforts in drawing the line with respect to such blatant cases of international injustice as that committed against Libya.


Halifax, March 26, 2011

Return to top


Canadian to Command NATO Mission --
Canada's Everlasting Shame


Windsor, March 26, 2011

Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced on March 25 that Canadian Lt.-Gen. Charlie Bouchard, currently stationed at the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy, will lead NATO's military aggression against Libya.

The U.S. had indicated that it would like to transfer command of the Libya mission within days. The media quote retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie saying that Bouchard was "the obvious choice" because there were political issues with France or Britain taking the lead.

"Here's this Canadian that's already in the headquarters, the allied joint forces command in Naples," MacKenzie said on CTV's Power Play. "I don't think it took the 28 members of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels [very long] to say, 'Hey, this guy's a good choice.'"

Bouchard has previously served as the deputy commander of NORAD. He joined the Canadian Forces in 1974 and once served with the U.S. Army in Fort Hood, Texas.

A NATO official confirmed that Bouchard will be responsible for the international air campaign and the arms embargo being enforced by naval vessels. He will serve under U.S. Adm. Samuel Locklear, who is the commander of NATO's operations headquarters for the Mediterranean, in Italy. The Canadian Press reports that Ottawa is likely to send a handful of staff to work with Bouchard in his new job.

MacKenzie said that Bouchard's duties will include "cutting down on the dissention amongst the military commanders" who have differing views on what the UN Security Council resolution permits them to do in Libya.

MacKay said that NATO remains "in discussions" about the shape and form of the military mission.

"NATO continues to plan and we are hopeful that the North Atlantic council will agree to an operational plan and the executing directive in the coming days," MacKay said.

Until that plan is set, MacKay said the NATO's no-fly-zone patrols "will run concurrently with coalition activities" that are being led by the United States for the time being.

At the press conference in Ottawa, MacKay also announced that Maj. Gen. Tom Lawson -- who has recently been briefing the media about the operation in Libya -- is about to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general and will take a senior posting with NORAD.

TML deplores the decision to participate in this aggression. To suggest that placing command of the NATO forces under a Canadian lieutenant-general is a sign of Canadian maturity is foolish. It simply means that Canada is entrusted to maintain the U.S. domination of its European partners within NATO. Such abject servility is deplorable. It is shameful, not a matter of pride.

Return to top


Study Finds Canada's Military Spending
at Highest Point Since WWII

A study released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on March 9 says Canada is spending more on its military than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Defence spending is expected to hit at least $22.3 billion in the current budget year, a report on the study says. Researchers estimate that's a 54 per cent increase over the last decade.

The study was produced for the centre by Bill Robinson, a senior adviser with the Rideau Institute, CP reported. Robinson established that a significant part of the budget increase has gone toward fighting the war in Afghanistan, which, he argues, "has robbed Canada of the ability to carry out traditional peacekeeping missions."Canada, now ranks 60th on the list of 102 countries making a peacekeeping contribution to the United Nations.

"Canada could make a much greater contribution to global security and humanitarian action by shifting resources to non-military security efforts and to peacekeeping operations," Robinson said in a release by the centre.

"Such a shift would make Canada truly a great power in the world of development assistance and humanitarian aid. This is an arena in which Canada could 'punch above its weight' on an issue crucial to human welfare and global security."

Return to top


Canadian Military Exports to the
Middle East & North Africa

For decades, Canadian governments -- Conservative and Liberal alike -- have preached peace and human rights, while facilitating the steady flow of weapons, ammunition, tear gas, armoured vehicles and many other military and so-called "security" products to repressive, undemocratic regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. These governments are responsible for widespread, violent and systematic abuses of human rights, such as torture and murder. By exporting military and police products to these countries, Canada is complicit in aiding and abetting numerous authoritarian, U.S.-backed regimes that maintain a tight grip on power through propaganda, intimidation and sheer brute force.

Inspired by popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and growing protests throughout the region, the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) has compiled information on military exports and produced data tables for 16 recipient countries in the Middle East and North Africa. COAT's tables show the value of "Munitions" in 22 categories from "Group 2" of Canada's "Export Control List," as published in reports by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) called "Export of Military Goods from Canada." (Click here for the COAT's interactive table detailing "Canadian Military Exports to the Middle East & North Africa").

According to DFAIT's official reports -- which unfortunately only document some of Canada's military exports -- the Canadian government permitted military sales valued at more than $1.8 billion to the Middle East and North Africa between 1990 and 2006. (The Government of Canada has failed to produce any reports since 2009, when it released data on 2006.) Unfortunately, DFAIT's reports do not document the export of any "dual use" military products, even when these have been sold directly to the armed forces of foreign governments. Neither do DFAIT's reports include any data on military exports to the U.S., despite the fact that: (1) the U.S. receives about 3/4 of Canada's military exports, and (2) Canadian military products are assembled into complete weapons systems in the U.S. and are then re-exported to other countries. Because of the inadequacies in DFAIT's transparency on Canadian arms exports, the data assembled in COAT's tables is -- regrettably -- incomplete. However, this is the best publicly-available information on Canada's military exports to the Middle East and North Africa. [...]

Return to top


Recent Developments

Troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi on March 30 regained control of the Ras Lanuf Oil and Gas Processing Company, west of Benghazi, which had been captured by rebels with the support of the NATO-led military strikes, news agencies report.

It is also reported that under the heavy fire of Gadhafi's artillery, rebels were forced to retreat to the city of Ben Jawad, some 150km away from Sirte. The rebels are now considering going around the city, if they cannot break through Gadhafi's defense. They say they may head for the city of Misrata, the last and only rebel stronghold in the western part of Libya.

The next city for them to be pushed back to would be Brega. Once that happens, they are not that far from Ajdabiya, which is just outside of Benghazi, their present stronghold, news agencies say.

In Misurata, news agencies report that more than 4,000 Egyptians and other foreigners are housed in tents. Within two days Tripoli could run out of fuel, and large queues of people are already gathering outside bakeries and other food stores, they say.

Civilians Hit by Airstrikes

There are reports that the international coalition shelled military and civilian targets in Tripoli, Misurata and Zaltan to the east of the capital, and Mizda to the south. Doctors in Sirte say they are treating hundreds of patients wounded by the recent air strikes. They also say it is impossible to determine how many people have been killed, as many have died on the sides of the roads and have been just buried there.

NATO officials admit that the number of air strikes has increased in recent days and pointed out that despite all the reconnaissance, more and more of these strikes are happening in urban areas, increasing the number of civilian casualties.

On March 28 the Pentagon admitted they were using AC-130s and AC-10s. According to Russian Lieutenant General Leonid Sazhin told Itar-Tass news agency that these can hardly be called high-accuracy planes for hitting military targets.

"These are fighter aircraft designed for hitting personnel targets and destroying military weaponry on the ground," he said. "[...] The application of these planes literally means that Americans are helping the rebels on the land front."

Political observer Christoph Hoerstel says NATO is using depleted uranium ammunition in bombs and missiles for its attacks on Libya.

"We have news reports on this, we know that the U.S. and other countries, for example the UK are using these weapons constantly -- it's their unfortunately dirty habit -- they have used them in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and there's no exception in Libya" says Hoerstel. "It's not always depleted uranium, it's enriched uranium as well -- that's the situation. We have to be clear -- there's no question of that. And now we have to see the implications for the mandate of the United Nations."

CIA on the Ground

U.S. President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for opposition forces, Reuters reports. Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding," within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter, Reuters says.

Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency.

An item in the New York Times also reports on the use of CIA operatives in Libya:

"The Central Intelligence Agency has inserted clandestine operatives into Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and contact rebels battling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces, according to American officials.

"While President Obama has insisted that no American military ground troops participate in the Libyan campaign, small groups of CIA operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks as part of a shadow force of Westerners that the Obama administration hopes can help bleed Colonel Qaddafi's military, the officials said.

"In addition to the CIA presence, composed of an unknown number of Americans who had worked at the spy agency's station in Tripoli and others who arrived more recently, current and former British officials said that dozens of British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are working inside Libya. The British operatives have been directing airstrikes from British jets and gathering intelligence about the whereabouts of Libyan government tank columns, artillery pieces and missile installations, the officials said.

"United States officials hope that similar information gathered by American intelligence officers -- from the location of Colonel Qaddafi's munitions depots to the clusters of government troops inside towns -- might help weaken Libya's military enough to encourage defections within its ranks.

"In addition, the American spies are meeting with rebels to try to fill in gaps in understanding who their leaders are and the allegiances of the groups opposed to Colonel Qaddafi, according to United States government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the activities. American officials cautioned, though, that the Western operatives are not directing the actions of rebel forces. A CIA spokesman declined to comment."

"The whole issue on [providing rebels with] training and equipment requires knowing who the rebels are," said Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA Middle East expert who has advised the Obama White House. Riedel said that helping the rebels to organize themselves and training them how use weapons effectively would be more urgent than shipping them arms.

London Conference Plots Further Crimes Against Libya


Protest organized by the UK Stop the War Coalition outside the London Conference on Libya, March 29, 2011.

On March 29, more than 40 countries and organizations, including the United Nations, NATO and the Arab League met in London without any Libyan government representatives. At the Conference on Libya they plotted how to continue their plans for war and regime change. British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy described the agenda of the conference as plotting a post-Gadhafi political landscape, as well as ironing out differences over the military mission.

In a letter to the conference, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi called for ending what he described as "the unfair and barbaric offensive" against the Libyans. In the letter carried by the official Libyan news agency Jana, Gadhafi said: "Leave Libya for Libyans. You are committing genocide against a peaceful people and destroying a developing nation."

Gadhafi said the situation in Libya will be handled by the African Union (AU), stressing that Libya would accept "what a high-profile AU commission would decide."

Meanwhile, the conference agreed to create a contact group to dictate Libya's future and to meet again as soon as possible in the Arab state of Qatar.

British Foreign Minister William Hague, who chaired the conference, said the delegates "agreed that Gadhafi and his regime have completely lost legitimacy." The representatives agreed to continue military action until Gadhafi met all the conditions of the UN resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and other measures allegedly to protect civilians, he added. He also noted that Qatar agreed to facilitate the sale of Libyan oil.

Hague's statement made no mention of specific plans to carry out the regime change, but Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told AFP that the participants had "unanimously" agreed that Gadhafi should leave the country.

"Beyond that, it depends on the country which may offer to welcome Gadhafi," he added. "There is as yet no formal proposal, no country has formulated such a plan, even the African countries which may be ready to make one."

However, news reports state that Hague said Britain still wanted Gadhafi to face the International Criminal Court, or possibly send him into exile, which Spain's foreign minister had also earlier described as a possibility.

In related news, the so-called Transitional National Council sent a letter to the Conference on Libya in which it vowed to work for free and fair elections in a "modern, free and united state." The group's envoy, Mahmud Jibril, was also in London. While not invited to attend the conference, he met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, British Foreign Minister William Hague and the foreign ministers of France and Germany on the sidelines, news agencies report.

A senior administration official said the U.S. will soon send an envoy to Libya to deepen relations with the opposition leaders. But the official said the meeting wouldn't constitute formal recognition.

Activists from the Stop the War Coalition held a demonstration outside the conference to oppose the foreign military presence in Libya, news agencies report.

Obama Defends Violation of UN Charter

Obama said in an NBC interview that he did not rule out arming Libyan rebels as they seek to make territorial gains and overthrow Gadhafi, news agencies report. "I'm not ruling it out. But I'm also not ruling it in. We're still making an assessment partly about what Gadhafi's forces are going to be doing," Obama said in the interview. And he said in an ABC interview that he had already agreed to provide nonlethal aid such as communications equipment, medical supplies and potentially transportation aid to the Libyan opposition. "We are going to be looking at all options to provide support to the Libyan people so that we can transition towards a more peaceful and more stable Libya," Obama said.

Obama also said that he was confident that Gadhafi would "ultimately" step down under intense international pressure.

"I think what we're seeing is that the circle around Gadhafi understands that the noose is tightening, that their days are probably numbered, and they are going to have to think through what their next steps are," he said.

Collectivity Means UN Should Serve U.S. Security Aims

Obama said that the Libya operation was an example of how the world "should work" with the United States at the center of a broad international coalition.

"That's how the international community should work -- more nations [with] the United States right there at the center of it, but not alone, everybody stepping up, bearing their responsibilities," Obama said. "That's what it means to be [the] United Nations," he added.

"We believe that the world is more secure and the interests of the United States are best advanced when we act collectively," said Obama. "The burden of action should not always be America's alone."

"Today in Libya, we are showing what's possible when we find our courage; when we fulfill our responsibilities and when we come together, as an international community, to defend our common interests and our common values," Obama said. "We're saving innocent lives," he lied.

Obama said his Libyan policy should not necessarily be viewed as an "Obama Doctrine," saying each country in the region is different. While force was used in Libya, he said, this "does not mean that somehow we are going to go around trying to use military force to impose or apply certain forms of government."

Russia's Position

Libyans must forge their country's political future without interference Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized. "Not long ago the French foreign minister announced that France is ready to discuss weapons supplies to the Libyan opposition with its coalition partners," Lavrov told a news conference after talks with his Austrian counterpart.

"Right away, NATO Secretary-General [Anders] Fogh Rasmussen said the Libyan operation is being conducted to protect the population, not to arm it. We fully agree with the NATO secretary-general on this," Lavrov said.

Speaking of Libya's political future, Lavrov said it was obvious the country was "ripe for reforms" but added that "the Libyan sides must agree on what the Libyan state should be."

"It's clear that it will be a different regime, and it's clear that it should be a democratic regime, but Libyans themselves must decide without influence from outside," Lavrov said. He did not elaborate how this would be possible once regime change has been brought about "from outside."

NATO Commander Threatens "Foreign Stabilization Force"

The top NATO military commander says Libya may need a foreign stabilization force if rebels supported by international airstrikes succeed in ousting Gadhafi. U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis made the comment in an appearance before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee news agencies report. Media remained quite that this would mean an occupation, the only hostile act not currently authorized by the UN Security Council resolution.

"When you look at the history of NATO, having gone through this, as many on this committee have, with Bosnia and Kosovo, it's quite clear that the possibility of [the need for] a stabilization regime exists," he said. "And so, I have not heard any discussion about it yet, but I think that history is in everybody's mind as we look at the events in Libya," he added. He predicted that the military operation, plus international diplomatic and financial pressure and attacks by the rebels, will likely result in Gadhafi's departure or overthrow.

"I think that any Gadhafi forces that are demonstrating hostile intent against the Libyan population are legitimate targets," said Stavridis. NATO will take command of the "humanitarian and protection of civilians" effort within the next day or two, he said.

Former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister and UN General Assembly President Named Libya's Permanent Representative to UN

Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, former Nicaraguan foreign minister and UN General Assembly President, has been named Libya's permanent representative to the UN in a letter from Gadhafi's foreign minister Musa Koussa, according to news reports.

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq on March 30 said that the UN had not received the letter. When asked about the letter's stating that the US had denied a visa to Gadhafi's first replacement, Ali Treki (who succeeded d'Escoto as president of the UN General Assembly), Haq said "ask the United States." No response was forthcoming from the U.S., Inter City Press reports.

Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann is a dual citizen of Nicaragua and the United States and does not need a visa. On March 31 he held a press conference, which Haq presented only in terms of Nicaragua and the GA, not Libya.

Inter City Press notes that, "The stakes are now raised at the UN. Under customary procedure, d'Escoto Brockmann would be accepted as Permanent Representative replacing Shalgam. He could then enter and speak in the Security Council, as well as go and 'clean out' the Libyan Mission to the UN on 48th Street of all those who renounced Gadhafi.

"But these are not customary times. It is possible that Western 'coalition' members and/or Secretary General Ban Ki-moon could push Musa Koussa's letter to the General Assembly's Credential Committee, as they recently did the case of Cote d'Ivoire. That would set a precedent."

In related news, agencies report that former Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Koussa subsequently defected through Tunisia from where he flew to an airbase in England.

(Agencies)

Return to top


Libyan War and Control of the Mediterranean

A year after assuming the post of president of the French Republic in 2007, and while his nation held the rotating European Union presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy invited the heads of state of the EU's 27 members and those of 17 non-EU Mediterranean countries to attend a conference in Paris to launch a Mediterranean Union.

In the words of Britain's Daily Telegraph regarding the subsequent summit held for the purpose on July 13, 2008, "Sarkozy's big idea is to use imperial Rome's centre of the world as a unifying factor linking 44 countries that are home to 800 million people."

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, however, announced that his nation would boycott the gathering, denouncing the initiative as one aimed at dividing both Africa and the Arab world, and stating:

"We shall have another Roman empire and imperialist design. There are imperialist maps and designs that we have already rolled up. We should not have them again."[1]

The unprecedented summit was held with the intention of "shift[ing] Europe's strategic focus towards the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans."[2]

The Mediterranean Union was renamed the less controversial Union for the Mediterranean and its members include all 44 nations originally invited to join except for Libya.

Less than three years later Sarkozy's Mirage and Rafale warplanes were bombing Libyan government targets, initiating an ongoing war being waged by France, the United States, Britain and what the world news media refer to as an international coalition -- 12 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the emirate of Qatar -- to overthrow the Gaddafi government and implant a more pliant replacement.

The Mediterranean Sea is the main battle front in the world currently, superseding the Afghanistan-Pakistan war theater, and the empire of the new third millennium -- that of the U.S., the world's sole military superpower in the words of President Barack Obama in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, and its NATO partners -- is completing the transformation of the Mediterranean into its mare nostrum.

The attack on Libya followed by slightly more than three weeks a move in the parliament of the Eastern Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus to drag that state into NATO's Partnership for Peace program,[3] which if ultimately successful would leave only three of twenty nations (excluding microstate Monaco) on or in the Mediterranean Sea not full members of NATO or beholden to it through partnership entanglements, including those of the Mediterranean Dialogue (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia): Libya, Lebanon and Syria.

NATO membership and partnerships obligate the affected governments to open their countries to the U.S. military. For example, less than a year after becoming independent Montenegro had already joined the Partnership for Peace and was visited by then-commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe Admiral Harry Ulrich and the submarine tender Emory S. Land in an effort "to provide training and assistance for the Montenegrin Navy and to strengthen the relationship between the two navies."[4] The next month four NATO warships, including the USS Roosevelt guided missile destroyer, docked in Montenegro's Tivat harbor.

If the current Libyan model is duplicated in Syria as increasingly seems to be the case, and with Lebanon already blockaded by warships from NATO nations since 2006 in what is the prototype for what NATO will soon replicate off the coast of Libya, the Mediterranean Sea will be entirely under the control of NATO and its leading member, the U.S.

Cyprus in the only European Union member and indeed the only European nation (except for microstates) that is -- for the time being -- not a NATO member or partner, and Libya is the only African nation bordering the Mediterranean not a member of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue partnership program.

Libya is also one of only five of Africa's 54 countries that have not been integrated into, which is to say subordinated to, the new U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

The others are:

Sudan, which is being balkanized as Libya may also soon be.

Ivory Coast, now embroiled in what is for all intents a civil war with the West backing the armed groups of Alassane Ouattara against standing president Laurent Gbagbo and under the threat of foreign military intervention, likely by the AFRICOM -- and NATO-supported West African Standby Force and possibly with direct Western involvement.[5]

Eritrea, which borders Djibouti where some 5,000 U.S. and French troops are based and which was involved in an armed border conflict with its neighbor three years ago in which French military forces intervened on behalf of Djibouti.

Zimbabwe, which is among likely candidates for the next U.S.-NATO Operation Odyssey Dawn-type military intervention.

The Mediterranean has been history's most strategically important sea and is the only one whose waves lap the shores of three continents.

Control of the sea has been fought over by the Persian, Alexandrian, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Spanish, British and Napoleonic empires, in part or in whole, and by Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany.

Since the end of World War Two the major military power in the sea has been the U.S. In 1946 Washington established Naval Forces Mediterranean, which in 1950 became the U.S. Sixth Fleet and has its headquarters in the Mediterranean port city of Naples.

In fact the genesis of the U.S. Navy was the Naval Act of 1794, passed in response to the capture of American merchant vessels off the coast of North Africa. The Mediterranean Squadron (also Station) was created in reaction to the first Barbary War of 1801-1805, also known as the Tripolitan War after what is now northwestern Libya. The U.S. fought its first naval battle outside the Western Hemisphere against Tripolitania in 1801.

U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, also based in Naples, is assigned to the Sixth Fleet and provides forces for both U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command. Its commander is Admiral Samuel Locklear III, who is also commander of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Naples.

He has been coordinating U.S. and NATO air and missile strikes against Libya from USS Mount Whitney, the flagship of the Sixth Fleet, as commander of Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn, the U.S. Africa Command operation in charge of U.S. guided missile destroyers, submarines and stealth bombers conducting attacks inside Libya.

Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations (the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Navy), recently stated that the permanent U.S. military presence in the Mediterranean allowed the Pentagon, which "already was positioned for operations over Libya," to launch Odyssey Dawn on March 19. "The need, for example in the opening rounds, for the Tomahawk strikes, the shooters were already in place. They were already loaded, and that went off as we expected it would."

"That's what you get when you have a global Navy that's forward all the time .We're there, and when the guns go off, we're ready to conduct combat operations..."[6]

On March 22 General Carter Ham, the new chief of U.S. Africa Command, visited the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany and met with British, French and Italian air force leaders to evaluate the bombing campaign in Libya. He praised cooperation with NATO partners before the war began, stating, "You can't bring 14 different nations together without ever having prepared for this before."[7]

As the AFRICOM commander was in Germany, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Egypt to meet with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, commander in chief of the Egyptian armed forces and chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, to coordinate the campaign against Libya.

The Pentagon's website reported on March 23 that forces attached to AFRICOM's Task Force Odyssey Dawn had flown 336 air sorties, 108 of them launching strikes and 212 conducted by the U.S. The operations included 162 Tomahawk cruise missile attacks.

Admiral Roughead stated that he envisioned "no problem in keeping operations going," as the Tomahawks will be replaced from the existing inventory of 3,200. Enough to level Libya and still have plenty left over for the next war.[8]

The defeat and conquest, directly or by proxy, of Libya would secure a key outpost for the Pentagon and NATO on the Mediterranean Sea.

The consolidation of U.S. control over North Africa would have more than just regional repercussions, important as they are.

Shortly after the inauguration of U.S. Africa Command, Lin Zhiyuan, deputy director of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences, wrote the following:

"By building a dozen forward bases or establishments in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and other African nations, the U.S. will gradually establish a network of military bases to cover the entire continent and make essential preparations for docking an aircraft carrier fleet in the region."

"The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with the U.S. at the head had [in 2006] carried out a large-scale military exercise in Cape Verde, a western African island nation, with the sole purpose of controlling the sea and air corridors of crude oil extracting zones and monitoring how the situation is with oil pipelines operating there."

"[A]frica Command represents a vital, crucial link for the US adjustment of its global military deployment. At present, it is moving the gravity of its forces in Europe eastward and opening new bases in Eastern Europe."

"The present U.S. global military redeployment centers mainly on an 'arc of instability' from the Caucasus, Central and Southern Asia down to the Korean Peninsula, and so the African continent is taken as a strong point to prop up the US global strategy.

"Therefore, AFRICOM facilitates the United States advancing on the African continent, taking control of the Eurasian continent and proceeding to take the helm of the entire globe."[9]

Far more is at stake in the war with Libya than control of Africa's largest proven oil reserves and subjugating the last North African nation not yet under the thumb of the U.S. and NATO. Even more than domination of the Mediterranean Sea region.

Notes

1. Daily Telegraph, July 10, 2008
2. Daily Telegraph, July 14, 2008
3. Cyprus: U.S. To Dominate All Europe, Mediterranean Through NATO, Stop NATO, March 3, 2011
4. United States European Command, May 24, 2007
5. Ivory Coast: Testing Ground For U.S.-Backed African Standby Force, Stop NATO, January 23, 2011
6. U.S. Department of Defense, March 23, 2011
7. U.S. Air Forces in Europe, March 23, 2011
8. U.S. Department of Defense, March 23, 2011
9. People's Daily, February 26, 2007

Return to top


Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca