2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHere's what Hillary really wants: "Hey, Africans to "get over" the trauma of colonization"
Clinton: Africa must launch tough economic reforms
African nations must stop seeking handouts and begin tough structural reforms, especially on trade, if they truly want to improve their economies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday.
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"If you look at trade between African countries, it is abysmally minimalistic," Clinton said. "African countries don't trade with themselves. They have barriers and tariffs and customs problems that stand in the way of developing their own economies."
Clinton's sharp comments were in response to a question about broadening the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a measure passed by Congress in 2000 which gives favorable access to U.S. markets to dozens of African countries.
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"They'd rather have the biggest piece of a small pie than a smaller piece of a big pie. So if you are going to have that mentality, it is really hard to utilize the incredible tool that AGOA is," she said.
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Sounding almost exasperated, Clinton indicated that Africa's arguments for the redress of economic imbalances left by colonialism were beginning to wear a little thin -- at least in Washington.
"For goodness sakes, this is the 21st century. We've got to get over what happened 50, 100, 200 years ago and let's make money for everybody. That's the best way to try to create some new energy and some new growth in Africa," she said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/14/us-africa-usa-idUSTRE65D61920100614
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sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Well ok. Will do.
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)white man's burden. Nothing like colonizing Africa, killing millions and stealing their resources and then expecting them to cooperate further with the west in their own exploitation. She appears to be as cold as ice.
bumprstickr
(74 posts)resources, people, land. How long does it take to get over something that is still going on?
polly7
(20,582 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)but not its desire for Empire. Amazing really that this country threw them out, rejected Colonialism. And we are now the Empire that replaced them.
In Africa, the ME, South America and to see ANY American cheering this on is simply fascination. Because on the one hand, they willl cheer for our 'freedoms' and apparnently have no clue what those freedoms were FROM.
The old British Empire is now tagging along with the New Empire, thanks Karl Rove for at least telling the truth about that. And repeating the history of oppression in Africa and everywhere else they went to ravage entire continents.
bumprstickr
(74 posts)without all the stealing from other countries, and the free slave labor for 200 years?
Liked your part about the desire for Empire. Or an addiction. and the US definitely has the addiction.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Brits, we had the resources right here to be able to take care of our needs.
The Brits and other European Colonials did not have the huge resources we have here.
It is an addiction, the desire for Empire. It is sad that this country has succumbed to it. We were supposed to the way out of that addiction.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Liberals love context, it is the other side that hates it.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)conferences she has attended to discuss African economic issues where an agenda item is sometimes regarding easing of these barriers to trade has educated her in that....better trade can lead to general prosperity.
The law she refers to assists with that. She has some experience, as some might recall, in foreign affairs as America's top diplomat, which is a job not always all about the military.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)business THEIR way? Libya was a very advanced nation, now it is a hell hole of murder and rape and tragedy. I know, we White Western Nations always know what's best for those Brown and Black people. 
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Not sure what your struggle is, Fred.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Are you as near knowledgable as Clinton on African economic affairs?
Because the entire article, in context, is nothing like what is being implied, but some folks are quick to judge and slow to listen.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)Why don't you explain that here, instead of just complaining that her words are not being taken correctly?
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)I would like some 'splaining...
I'm not seeing the semantics part. Much to subtle for me.
Uncle Joe
(58,336 posts)Thanks for the thread, Catherina.
msongs
(67,381 posts)
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)Well, that and citing quotes out of context.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)Maedhros
(10,007 posts)artislife
(9,497 posts)being victimized by corporate imperialism right now.
As I was driving today, I was thinking of that very thing. We have gone in and decimated many cultures to get their raw goods and assets to feed our economy. Well "our economy" up and left us. So they are doing the same to us as they did to almost every other colony. They take the raw goods and assets, work the people for low wages and take the spoils back out. There is little good that happens for the majority.
If you think bigger picture, it is karma, we are just in a different part of the cycle that has been chewing it up over centuries.
And we just didn't think it would happen to us, God was on our side, afterall.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)tells us how Empires end buried in the debts of their wars.
artislife
(9,497 posts)One of my history teachers talked at length on many reasons why the empire fell.
One small aside stayed with me. The Vandals. They came and destroyed aquaducts. They did a lot of other things, were a bit unorganized but brutal, but this one thing was very effective. The soft under belly of a civilization.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)version of that: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy. He takes about 10 historical empires including us and looks at why they fell or will fall.
His premise is that Empires overreach themselves as the policemen of the world spending so much on military needs that there is not enough left over to keep the "fatherland" intact. Too much on military and not enough on the needs of the people at home.
It is a good read. Relevant to today.
artislife
(9,497 posts)BootinUp
(47,136 posts)I mean what does she know anyways? Probably she just wants to use the CGI to somehow use them. I don't trust anyone but Bernie.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)into conducting what was CALLED a 'humanitarian intervention' one of Africa's most developed nations. I know, those poor Brown and Black people NEED us White Westerns to tell them what is good for them. Been going on for centuries. We're just the latest Empire to tell them what's best for them.
Anyone in the West every listen to THEM? I have, have you?
BootinUp
(47,136 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)heard of Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu, who actually DO know something about their continent? Remember the Western attitude towards Apartheid in South Africa?
You smply confirmed my point about the arrogance of the West HISTORICALLY towards Africa, the ME and everywhere else they have been over the centuries imposing THEIR culture on those cultures.
The fight to rid their cultures of Western Influence has been difficult.
Same thing in India, the West just KNEW what was good for India.
No offense, but your response was expected, same as it always has been when the West tries to defend it's Imperialism.
It's NOT our busines, is it, what African or ME cultures choose to do.
Libyans fought for over a year against the entire forces of the West to try to preserve their independence. Now their once advanced nation looks like something from a futuristic Mad Max movie.
So, we did what over there to bring them 'freeeeedom'? Refugees fleeing our haven of 'democracy'?
We went there for the same reasons Imperialist Western nations have ALWAYS gone to these continents, to control their resources.
And we left them in a state of pure hell. Defend what Libya has become if you can. Or even if you KNOW.
BootinUp
(47,136 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)it is OUR BUSINESS.
How seriously arrogant, really.
WE HAD A CIVIL WAR right here. Should Eastern Imperialists have intervened in OUR Civil War, defended it, opposed, ANYTHING?
Why are you asking ME for MY Western opinion on the business of a nation or continent that is NONE OF MY BUSINESS?
We can't fix our own country, yet we are going to fix everyone else's?
Do you SEE how you confirm with that question everything I just said?
BootinUp
(47,136 posts)When innocent civilians are being slaughtered in the streets because a government has failed completely, I support efforts to end the conflict. In the case of Libya, this story is not over and I fully support the effort to identify responsible leaders and support them.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)invasion, show me where innocent civilians were being slaughtered by anyone OTHER than Al Queda who were being kept in check in Libya, FOR US.
Do the 'humanitarian interventionists' even CARE about the horrendous, savage murders, mass killings, torture, robbery that is CURRENtLY OCCURRING right NOW in Libya? There is no doubt about this, they are DYING and FLEEING our 'humanitarian invasion'. Clearly the Western Imperialists lost interest AFTER NATO 'saved innocent civilians'. How long ago was that now?
Other than to refuse the victims of their invasion, SANCTUARY in THEIR nations!! Shameful!
Know what happened to the sub saharan workers who were earning a living in Libya AFTER the neocon invasion?
The children, surely they are not guilty of anything? But who knows, with our current policies, after all we had children in Gitmo.
So if saving civilian lives is so important, WHERE IS NATO NOW? World human rights organizations have been BEGGING NOW, not BEFORE for intervention to STOP what we unleashed there. For YEARS. Falling on deaf ears.
Did you ever visit Libya under Gadaffi btw? Visit it lately?
polly7
(20,582 posts)sanction and employment in Libya - some burnt, many tortured and disfigured and, some hung in the streets - after the propaganda and false claims they were brought in as mercenaries for Gaddafi. They had lived and worked there for years. Not a peep in the press about 'humanitarian intervention' for them. It was a horrific sham, and now we do see the thousands of Libyan people trying to escape the horror left behind, with all this new suffering.
You're so right - NATO should be protecting those very people it helped to ruin the lives of, at least in getting those who need to leave, out.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)to help us fix our problem with POC being killed here in the US? Which country, and what kind of help would you support? And which leaders should they identify as responsible and support? Leaders from the black community? Can they be supplied with arms and military support to use for their cause against our police system?
BootinUp
(47,136 posts)passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)People of Color.
cprise
(8,445 posts)Now, like Iraq, dozens of people will die by the week or by the day .... for who knows how long!
The future in the offering for Libyans: Islamic theocracy to replace a secular dictatorship. WOW! That's worth it for sure!
And refugees?? Don't really care, eh? Don't care about the stress it puts on other governments in the region or in Europe.
The African Union had *already* struck a deal with Gadaffi for him to go into exile. What was that to the US? Squat!
BootinUp
(47,136 posts)I do not blindly accept your view on the issue anymore than I accept other reports from questionable sources. Rather I put trust in elected officials that have a record of doing the right thing.
cprise
(8,445 posts)saying Saddam had WMD "again", and then Hillary's vote for IWR later. She even keeps Bush neocons as advisors.
If Hillary and her staff are so inimical to the idea of reading European news sources that would have informed them about the fraudulent claims (i.e. yellowcake documents were known to UN experts are forgeries, and more) then she's a neocon imperialist like the rest of them. Nothing from outside the establishment will get her to do any thing worth fighting for.
840high
(17,196 posts)
eridani
(51,907 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)and authorized by a unanimous vote by the 15 members of the Security Council, several of which were from Africa.
Or, as you put it, "white Westerners telling them what they need."
BootinUp
(47,136 posts)to the discussion.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)Like Bernie said about the ME...we need to get Saudi Arabia involved in helping these countries being overrun by ISIS. Yes, we can give support, but it should not be totally up to us.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Here - for starters.
Exposed: The "Humanitarian" War In Libya
Check this out - 'The Humanitarian War' = http://www.laguerrehumanitaire.fr/english It's horrifying.
A bunch of LIES submitted to the ICC ..... by the UN - who got their 'numbers and crimes' from the NTC Prime Minister - 'word to ear'. Pages and pages redacted.
No Evidence? No Problem!!
How the CIA Used "Libyan Expatriates" To Engineer Consent For Regime Change
One of the main sources for the claim that Qaddafi was killing his own people is the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR), an organization linked to the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH). On Feb. 21, 2011, LLHR General Secretary Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir initiated a petition in collaboration with the organization U.N. Watch and the National Endowment for Democracy. This petition was signed by more than 70 NGOs.
Then a few days later, on Feb. 25, Dr. Bouchuiguir went to the U.N. Human Rights Council in order to expose the allegations concerning the crimes of Qaddafi’s government. In July 2011 we went to Geneva to interview Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir.
"How to circumvent international law and justice 101." - originally published by http://laguerrehumanitaire.fr
A film by Julien Teil
Official Website:
http://laguerrehumanitaire.fr
Official web:
http://thehumanitarianwar.com
Official TV:
http://laguerrehumanitaire-film.rutube.ru/
Videos now here (I watched them on the original site when all of it was happening and posted these here at DU) http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29428.htm
Must watch videos, the western trained NTC 'Prime Minister' - 'word to ear!' was the source of the 'data (all unofficial and lies, of course) that led to the UN resolution.
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What you don't know about the Libyan crisis:
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The horror of Libya - to fulfill the PNAC objective of overthrowing yet another country. "7 countries in 5 years!" This was NO "Humanitarian Intervention", and certainly not for all those migrants Qaddafi had allowed in over decades, Qaddafi loyalists and others who were raped, tortured, mutilated, hung, burned to death .... all known of by the NATO 'humanitarian team'.
It was a bullshit, self-serving, western funded and backed coup against yet another sovereign nation not yet indebted to the IMF and controlling its own resources, not to mention not allowing U.S. bases 'Africom' into all of Africa.
Some of these links don't work anymore, but read and discover just what a sham this was and why. The video at the end is particularly interesting.
The Untold Story in Libya
Posted by polly7 in General Discussion
Tue Oct 18th 2011, 10:06 AM
In May 2010, Libya was voted on to the UN Human Rights Council by a huge majority. The UN Watch's campaign to remove Libya from the Human Rights Council began immediately.
In March, 2011, a report, containing positive quotes from UN diplomatic delegations in many countries, was due to be presented by the UN Human Rights Council, leading to a Resolution commending Libya's progress in a wide aspect of human rights (listed in the article). March 19, 2011, the attack on Libya began.
Libya was one of only five countries without a Rothschild model central bank, Quaddafi openly discussed, in 2009, the nationalization of US, UK, Germany, Spain, Norway, Canada and Italy's oil companies, switching to the gold dinar - a single African currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar and allow African nations to share the wealth. Libya has an abundance of water - Gaddafi’s Great Man-Made River Project project offers limitless amounts of water for Libyans and would allow them to be totally self-sufficient. In the near-future, water will be the next resource equated with money and power, other countries may be dependent on its reserves. A self-sufficient, dictator-ruled nation with control over some of the world’s most precious resource waves a big red warning flag.
In 2010 Gaddafi made a motion to the UN General Assembly to investigate the circumstances of the invasion of Iraq. He was also wasting the west's ....... 'libya's' oil on free education, housing, tolerance of immigrants, raising the standard of living in Africa, lowering infant mortality while raising life expectancy.
Many of these things are completely similar to what we learned of Iraq.
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Yes, simply put, Nato's member nations are trying to steer back Libya Central Bank into the mainstream financial structure, under the watching eyes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Funds, to provide (reconstruction) funds to Libya with hefty interests payments - and transform a country which was free of debts into a heavily indebted country - as done everywhere else in sub-Saharan African countries.
http://businessafrica.net/africabiz/graphs...
http://businessafrica.net/africabiz/arcvol...
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From a 'no fly zone to all out bombing of targets called out by rebels'. NATO's high-precision bombing preceeded 'rebel' incursions.
http://antemedius.com/content/libya-r2p-no...
"It's now common knowledge that British SAS, French intelligence, US Central Intelligence Agency assets, Qatar special forces and mercenaries of all stripes were parachuted as boots on the ground for months, planning and training the "rebels" and in close coordination with that philanthropic prodigy, NATO.
That was never the UN mandate - but who cares? NATO/GCC paid the bills, NATO conducted the bombing and NATO/GCC will "stabilize" the mess, according to a 70-page plan leaked by the British to Rupert Murdoch'sz Times of London."
"Expect local - and global - fireworks as far as grabbing the loot is concerned. Without even considering the (still unexplored) oil and gas wealth, Libya's foreign assets are worth at least $150 billion. Libya's central bank, now about to be privatized, has no less than 143.8 tons of gold. Then there's at least a millennium supply of fresh water, which had started to be harnessed by Gaddafi via the spectacular, multibillion dollar Great Man-Made River (GMR) project."
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"Oil-rich but with a relatively small population of 6.6. million, Gadhafi's Libya welcomed hundreds of thousands of black Africans looking for work in recent decades. "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/l...
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NATO’s War on Libya is an Attack on African Development–Dan Glazebrook
6 09 2011
http://globalciviliansforpeace.com/tag/afr... /
To prevent this ‘threat of African development’, the Europeans and the USA have responded in the only way they know how – militarily. Four years ago, the US set up a new “command and control centre” for the military subjugation of the Africa, called AFRICOM. The problem for the US was that no African country wanted to host them; indeed, until very recently, Africa was unique in being the only continent in the world without a US military base. And this fact is in no small part, thanks to the efforts of the Libyan government.
Before Gaddafi’s revolution deposed the British-backed King Idris in 1969, Libya had hosted one of the world’s biggest US airbases, the Wheelus Air Base; but within a year of the revolution, it had been closed down and all foreign military personnel expelled.
More recently, Gaddafi had been actively working to scupper AFRICOM. African governments that were offered money by the US to host a base were typically offered double by Gaddafi to refuse it, and in 2008 this ad-hoc opposition crystallised into a formal rejection of AFRICOM by the African Union.
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The force used by the occupier to displace the old regime always makes sure the new regime is supine and complaint. The National Transitional Council, made up of former Gadhafi loyalists, Islamists and tribal leaders, many of whom detest each other, will be the West’s vehicle for the reconfiguration of Libya. Libya will return to being the colony it was before Gadhafi and the other young officers in 1969 ousted King Idris, who among other concessions had let Standard Oil write Libya’s petroleum laws. Gadhafi’s defiance of Western commercial interests, which saw the nationalization of foreign banks and foreign companies, along with the oil industry, as well as the closure of U.S. and British air bases, will be reversed. The despotic and collapsed or collapsing regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria once found their revolutionary legitimacy in the pan-Arabism of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. But these regimes fell victim to their own corruption, decay and brutality. None were worth defending. Their disintegration, however, heralds a return of the corporate and imperial power that spawned figures like Nasser and will spawn his radical 21st century counterparts.
Libya: Here We Go Again
Monday 5 September 2011
by: Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed
http://www.truthout.com/libya-here-we-go-a...
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LIBYA: Rebels execute black immigrants while forces kidnap others
http://somalilandpress.com/libya-rebels-ex...
"Many Africans have virtually nothing after years in Libya, many have been looted, robbed, while others saw their living quarters and apartments go in flames. Now they are praying to God to send them home.
While the international leaders are busy drafting resolutions to dismantle Muammar Gaddafi, the African Union has not yet commented on the situation in Libya.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court is said to have started a formal inquiry into possible crimes against humanity in Libya that will investigate the Libyan regime."
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JohnPilger.com
8 September 2011
http://johnpilger.com/articles/hail-to-the...
..."I quote that not so much for its Orwellian quality but as a model of journalism's role in justifying "our" bloodbaths in advance.
This is Rupert's Revolution, after all. Gone from the Murdoch press are pejorative "insurgents". The action in Libya, says The Times, is "a revolution... as revolutions used to be". That it is a coup by a gang of Muammar Gaddafi's ex cronies and spooks in collusion with Nato is hardly news.
The self-appointed "rebel leader", Mustafa Abdul Jalil, was Gaddafi's feared justice minister. The CIA runs or bankrolls most of the rest, including America's old friends, the Mujadeen Islamists who spawned al-Qaeda.
They told journalists what they needed to know: that Gaddafi was about to commit "genocide", of which there was no evidence, unlike the abundant evidence of "rebel" massacres of black African workers falsely accused of being mercenaries. European bankers' secret transfer of the Central Bank of Libya from Tripoli to "rebel" Benghazi by European bankers in order to control the country's oil billions was an epic heist of little .
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Sirte a 'living hell,' says aid group
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/co...
Tuesday 04 October 2011 by Our Foreign Desk Printable Email
A Red Cross team finally entered the besieged Libyan town of Sirte yesterday and delivered urgently needed surgical supplies to treat about 200 wounded people.
Nato has repeatedly targeted Sirte in its seven-month bombing campaign that enabled armed rebels to topple the government of Muammar Gadaffi and gain control of most of the oil-rich state.
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Absolutely horrible to use rape as a propaganda weapon for war, while ignoring the reality of it for all those brutalized, raped and some, murdered by the NATO supported 'rebels' - just one example of their many atrocities.
********* http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2174087 **********
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2011/08/26/lies-war-and-empire-nato’s-“humanitarian-imperialism”-in-libya
In early March of 2011, news headlines in Western nations reported that Gaddafi would kill half a million people.
<1> On March 18, as the UN agreed to launch air strikes on Libya, it was reported that Gaddafi had begun an assault against the rebel-held town of Benghazi. The Daily Mail reported that Gaddafi had threatened to send in his African mercenaries to crush the rebellion.<2> Reports of Libyan government tanks sitting outside Benghazi poised for an invasion were propagated in the Western media.<3> In the lead-up to the United Nations imposing a no-fly zone, reports spread rapidly through the media of Libyan government jets bombing the rebels.<4> Even in February, the New York Times – the sacred temple for the ‘stenographers of power’ we call “journalists” – reported that Gaddafi was amassing “thousands of mercenaries” to defend Tripoli and crush the rebels.<5>
Italy’s Foreign Minister declared that over 1,000 people were killed in the fighting in February, citing the number as “credible.”<6> Even a top official with Human Rights Watch declared the rebels to be “peaceful protesters” who “are nice, sincere people who want a better future for Libya.”<7> The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights declared that “thousands” of people were likely killed by Gaddafi, “and called for international intervention to protect civilians.”<8> In April, reports spread near and far at lightning speed of Gaddafi’s forces using rape as a weapon of war, with the first sentence in a Daily Mail article declaring, “Children as young as eight are being raped in front of their families by Gaddafi’s forces in Libya,” with Gaddafi handing out Viagra to his troops in a planned and organized effort to promote rape.<9>
As it turned out, these claims – as posterity notes – turned out to be largely false and contrived. Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International both investigated the claims of rape, and “have found no first-hand evidence in Libya that rapes are systematic and being used as part of war strategy,” and their investigations in Eastern Libya “have not turned up significant hard evidence supporting allegations of rapes by Qaddafi’s forces.” Yet, just as these reports came out, Hillary Clinton declared that the U.S. is “deeply concerned by reports of wide-scale rape” in Libya.<10> Even U.S. military and intelligence officials had to admit that, “there is no evidence that Libyan military forces are being given Viagra and engaging in systematic rape against women in rebel areas”; at the same time Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, “told a closed-door meeting of officials at the UN that the Libyan military is using rape as a weapon in the war with the rebels and some had been issued the anti-impotency drug. She reportedly offered no evidence to backup the claim.”<
Untrue, says US
US says Gadhafi troops issued Viagra, raping victims
Allegation suggests troops encouraged to turn to sexual violence, envoys say
By Louis Charbonneau
updated 4/28/2011 9:31:26 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. envoy to the United Nations told the Security Council Thursday that troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi were increasingly engaging in sexual violence and some had been issued the impotency drug Viagra, diplomats said.
Several U.N. diplomats who attended a closed-door Security Council meeting on Libya told Reuters that U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice raised the Viagra issue in the context of increasing reports of sexual violence by Gadhafi's troops.
"Rice raised that in the meeting but no one responded," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. The allegation was first reported by a British newspaper.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42809612/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa#.TqXeG96ImU8
US intel: No evidence of Viagra as weapon in Libya
http://www.msnbc .msn.com/id/42824884/ns/world_news-mide...
UN Ambassador Rice reportedly had said drug was being used in systematic rapes
NBC News and news services updated 4/29/2011 1:52:00 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS — There is no evidence that Libyan military forces are being given Viagra and engaging in systematic rape against women in rebel areas, US military and intelligence officials told NBC News on Friday.
Diplomats said Thursday that US Ambassador Susan Rice told a closed-door meeting of officials at the UN that the Libyan military is using rape as a weapon in the war with the rebels and some had been issued the anti- impotency drug. She reportedly offered no evidence to backup the claim.
While rape has been a weapon of choice in many other African conflicts, the US officials say they've seen no such reports out of Libya.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...
bvar22:
The Untold Story in Libya:
How The West Cooked Up The People's Uprising
http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/08/31/now-that-... ... /
The Global Disaster Capitalists never let a good disaster go to waste.
In the case of Libya, they used their Enforcement Arm (NATO & The US Military) to CREATE a disaster where there was none.
” For all his dictatorial megalomania, Gaddafi is a committed pan-African - a fierce defender of African unity. Libya was not in debt to international bankers. It did not borrow cash from the International Monetary Fund for any "structural adjustment". It used oil money for social services - including the Great Man Made River project, and investment/aid to sub-Saharan countries. Its independent central bank was not manipulated by the Western financial system. All in all a very bad example for the developing world.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/M...
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Libya: Oil, Banks, Water, the United Nations, and America’s Holy Crusade by Felicity Arbuthnot
Posted on April 5, 2011 by dandelionsalad
.."The country was commended: “for the progress made in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, namely universal primary education (and) firm commitment (to) health care.” There was “praise” for “cooperation with international organizations in combating human trafficking and corruption ..” and for cooperation with “the International Organization for Migration.”
“Progress in enjoyment of economic and social rights, including in the areas of education, health care, poverty reduction and social welfare” with “measures taken to promote transparency”, were also cited. Malaysia: “Commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for being party to a significant number of international and regional human rights instruments.” Promotion: “of the rights of persons with disabilities” and praise for “measures taken with regard to low income families”, were cited...
.."So how does the all tie together? Libya, in March being praised by the Majority of the UN., for human rights progress across the board, to being the latest, bombarded international pariah? A nation’s destruction enshrined in a UN., Resolution?
The answer lies in part with the Geneva based UN Watch.(vii) UN Watch is : “a non-governmental organization whose mandate is to monitor the performance of the United Nations.” With Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council, with ties to the UN Department of Public Information, “UN Watch is affiliated with the American Jewish Committee.” (AJC.)"
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/0... /
Interesting ..... the involvement in HR Watch of persons whose core values include securing energy resources.
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Two Nato missiles forced the group to leave the cars and escape on foot, seeking shelter in a drainage ditch. A bodyguard hurled grenades at approaching militiamen but one grenade "hit the concrete wall and bounced back to fall between Muammar Gaddafi and Abu Bakr Younis", Younis junior said.
"The shrapnel hit my father and he fell down to the ground. Muammar Gaddafi was also injured by the grenade, on the left side of his head," he said.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Gaddafi was already bleeding from head wounds caused by blast shrapnel as he tried to flee Sirte, his hometown.
The charity obtained unedited mobile footage that showed militia fighters abusing Gaddafi as they took him into custody in October 2011.
"As he was being led on to the main road, a militiaman stabbed him in his anus with what appears to have been a bayonet, causing another rapidly bleeding wound," the report said.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/gaddafi-killed-bayonet-stab-anus-libya-395224
The Grand finale - sodomized with a bayonet, beaten, tortured and murdered in the street - "We came, we saw ....... he died, lol".
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Horace Campbell and Maximilian Forte have written two solid accounts describing the reality versus myths of regime change in Libya. Clinton’s characterization of “accelerating” the fall of Qaddafi is a cynical understatement, like her self congratulatory comment that “we came, we saw, he died” after rebels killed Qaddafi on the street. Many of the refugees drowning in the Mediterannean Sea or reaching the shores of Italy today are a direct consequence of that operation. Yet who has been held to account?
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/09/the-wicked-war-on-syria/
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Britain, Libya and the Mediterranean - The Creation of a Humanitarian Emergency
by Dan Glazebrook / May 1st, 2015
NATO’s war of aggression against Libya in 2011 turned the country over to racist death squads, with hundreds of sub-Saharan migrant workers and black Libyans beaten and burnt to death by the ‘revolutionaries’ and tens of thousands illegally detained and tortured by the militias. Tawergha, the only black African town on the Mediterranean, and formerly home to around 30,000 people, is now a ghost town after NATO’s shock troops – militias with names like the ‘Brigades for the purging of black skins’ – ‘ethnically cleansed’ the region. Last week’s butchering of 30 Ethiopian workers by ISIS is but the latest chapter in the anti-African pogroms that have characterised the Libyan insurgency from the very start. This is the reality of NATO’s ‘Libyan revolution’ (led by AbdulHakim BelHaj, now leader of ISIS in Libya) and it is precisely this from which black Africans in Libya are now fleeing. As Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi put it, “a person has to risk his life because he needs to escape from a situation where they are chopping off the heads of those near him”.
And this head-chopping has not been restricted to Libya’s borders. NATO’s war has boosted head-choppers across the entire region, from Tunisia and Algeria to Mali, Nigeria and Cameroon. Before 2011, Boko Haram barely existed. Today, thanks to NATO opening up Libya’s arsenals to them and their friends, they are killing hundreds every week, often burning them alive in churches and mosques. As one Nigerian told a reporter last week, “We prefer to die trying (to migrate) than stay back there and die….Stay at home and get shot dead or maybe burnt to death; I just prefer to die while trying or survive.”
Yet the Libyan war itself is only the latest in a long series of acts of aggression launched by the British state and its allies, all of which continue to have disastrous consequences across the entire Middle East and North Africa region. A look at the list of where the migrants come from makes this devastatingly clear. The majority of the world’s refugees come from one of three countries: Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. What all have in common is that they have all been subject to vicious terror campaigns by Britain, the USA and their allies: whether directly, as in Afghanistan; through allied states, as with the US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006 (which toppled the first stable government the country had had in decades); or through the provision of cash, weapons and diplomatic cover to sectarian death squads, as in the case of Syria. Yemen is the latest additional source of refugees, with the Saudi bombing campaign bringing new arrivals to almost 10,000 per week.
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/britain-libya-and-the-mediterranean/
Behind Every Refugee Stands an Arms Trader
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/behind-every-refugee-stands-an-arms-trader/
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Trapped in Libya: the flotsam of the West’s wars
By Vijay Prashad
Source: al-Araby
May 14, 2015
European ambassadors have drafted a UN resolution, under chapter VII (which allows use of force), to tackle the crisis. For them the military option is the brightest light. As Mogherini said, the EU wants the authority to “use all necessary means to seize and dispose of the [smugglers’] vessels.
“Thus far in 2015, over 60,000 people have tried to cross from Libya to Europe. Of them, close to two thousand have died – a death toll 20 times higher than in 2014,” it continues.
The threat to the refugees is a direct outcome of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, ironically under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) banner. A new UNSC resolution is not going to be about the protection of the refugees, but to use force to destroy their lifeline. R2P has been ground under by the West’s behavior in Libya.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/trapped-in-libya-the-flotsam-of-the-wests-wars/
On Monday, a New York Times story demonstrated more specifically why Clinton's interactions with Blumenthal may have been a bad idea. Blumenthal, the Times reports via solid sources, was advising the Secretary of State both before and after former Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi's death while also advising a group of private individuals who hoped to make money by obtaining reconstruction-type contracts in a post-Qaddafi Libya.
Much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government. The venture, which was ultimately unsuccessful, involved other Clinton friends, a private military contractor and one former C.I.A. spy seeking to get in on the ground floor of the new Libyan economy ...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/05/18/hillary_clinton_sidney_blumenthal_libya_unofficial_adviser_represented_business.html
The detritus of regime change in Libya
By Vijay Prashad
Source: al-Araby
November 1, 2015
Much the same story is being repeated with the emergence of IS in Libya. Adversaries of Gaddafi in the 1990s took refuge in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group; one of whose strongholds was the town of Derna.
These fighters fled the country to join the Jihad International in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
It had become a familiar matter to meet an al-Libi in the redoubts of the jihadis. Studies show that Libya provided per capita the highest number of jihadis to this global campaign.
cprise
(8,445 posts)
MisterP
(23,730 posts)
jfern
(5,204 posts)Catherina
(35,568 posts)but I found out the hard way how *sensitive* some people suddenly become when forced to look
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)more of it, makes me sick, frankly. But then I don't understand the notion that White Western Imperialists are superior to Africans or anyone else. Someone needs to explain that to me.
As a descender of some of the victims of that Imperialism, maybe I'm a bit biased in my views.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)greed.
ismnotwasm
(41,974 posts)And just to put things in perspective, India is a subcontinent and Africa is an entire continent, complex with many nations and situations.
I mean, It's cool by me if you want to take an opportunity to slam Hillary out of content, but what's happening in the world is real news.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/markets/2015/10/29/India-s-Modi-to-set-out-Africa-trade-vision-at-summit.html
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)they are free to decide their own path.
Not so the African nations in which Western Imperialism is still ongoing. THEY WERE determining their own futures, until the West decided to once again STOP them.
I opposed that, will oppose Western Imperialism. I opposed the Iraq War for the same reasons, never mind the lies we were told.
What are we doing in any of these places with our humanitarian bombs? You're comparing a nation that fought HARD against Western Imperialism and won, to nations STILL being invaded and brutalized by the West. Where is the comparison here?
JI7
(89,244 posts)To many think the US has far more control than they actually do. And we do have a lot of influence as compared to other nations overall.
But for the people in the other countries their day to day lives is about much more.
Things do actually happen among and between other nations and it's really interesting to read about.
The summit itself is fascinating, it reminds me how little I know about the complexities of trade
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)If only your anti-colonialism principles extended to the former Soviet republics.
Deny and Shred
(1,061 posts)
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)I am quite disturbed that she has also not come out strongly against puppy kicking and not one mention of how Israel has occupied Palestine.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)And the rest of the former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe, for that matter.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)showing her colors. "Tough structural reforms" like cutting entitlements, cutting spending, cutting regulations and letting the free market work its magic (beans). No doubt.
DhhD
(4,695 posts)just like she did in Mexico in 2012 by helping to privatize PEMA-National Oil Industry of Mexico.
Deny and Shred
(1,061 posts)Who is the 'we' that needs to get over it? For whom is she speaking? This should be cross-posted in the AA forum.
With the ridiculous over-parsing thats been done around here about, among other topics, BLM, mysogyny, guns, 'shouting', this statement is blunt. It ought to examined and re-examined before throwing a single stone more. Then consider if Sanders or O'Malley said it, and what the response would be.
Wow.
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)When HRC is President it will be her job to formulate her own policy, not carry out someone else's. And it will be based on conditions in 2016, not 2010.
cprise
(8,445 posts)Clinton's response to free public education was that she and Bill "worked" for their education and implied that Americans should just be more like them.
That is soooooo DINO.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)and that's what she's proposing.
Doesn't sound too horrifying to me. It sounds like a big improvement over the status quo, actually, because it would come with paid tuition -- not loans.
cprise
(8,445 posts)justification for detracting from a student's studies.
A "small" job will not teach them a work ethic ANY more than the pursuit of good grades will. Adding a "work" requirement just perpetuates the passive-aggressive culture of American aid, where there is a pointy finger shoving your breast at every step with forms and reporting saying "PROVE IT.... PROVE IT.... PROVE IT... PROVE IT... PROVE IT..." Its Calvinistic bullshit.
The contortions and calisthenics required by all the "aid" and charity and infomercial-tainted crap that Hillary neoliberal types self-servingly promote (which admittedly do amount to a hill of beans) bury people in unnecessary mountains of paperwork and self-questioning and practically a demand that you turn yourself into a one-dimensional Orphan Annie muppet in order to avoid clinical depression.
The passive-aggressive "aid" culture is an extension of the aggressive police state, sharing a wantonness for crapping on the lives of ordinary Americans.
Now HERE.... Lets have a Clinton poster child moment....
The Tragic End of the Woman Bill Clinton Exploited As Poster Child for Gutting Welfare
Lillie Harden's story illustrates the damaging effects of President Bill Clinton's pet legislation.
I remember Michael Moore's indictment of welfare-to-work, how it creates indentured servants who aren't allowed to be good parents.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)financially to their education are more likely to put their full effort into it, knowing that it does have a cost, than students who have it handed to them for nothing.
So I think Hillary might be on the right track. There are millions of us who had 10 hour a week jobs in college and don't think it was a bad thing.
cprise
(8,445 posts)I just don't agree with the narrow definition of 'work' here. Its like the definition of 'business' that excludes anything non-profit.
Al Gore's idea of national service was superior to this, I think.
It would be interesting to see the research you mention, especially whether it focused on students in 'democratic socialist' countries. I recently read an article about Americans going to German public universities for free.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)The less and less I care for her.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)which is who the exasperation seem to be addressed to. This is basically oppo research from the basement of who knows what shop but it's pretty shabby IMHO.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)and businesses that already have a lock on a market," Clinton said
If only the US would do that.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)
moobu2
(4,822 posts)I guess it's just desperation but still dishonest.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)
PatrickforO
(14,569 posts)eradication of entire populations of indigenous peoples, the stealing of land and resources. This is what colonialism is, and if you don't think western 'democracies' have liberally partaken of it, ask the indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, South America and North America. I don't know all the issues about AGOA, but I do know that us asking Africans to get with the program of 'making money for everybody' isn't going to increase their trust much.
cprise
(8,445 posts)and created a true modern industrial base that included high-tech aircraft and weaponry as priorities.
AND if they matched the West's odd Anglo-Euro-nationalism with their own version of that.
You don't get to do full-blown capitalism without doing industrial militarism as well. And even so, you better be big as heck (like Russia, India or China) to pull it off without becoming a US client state.
Bernblu
(441 posts)It shouldn't really surprise me though - that's Hillary.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)Actually a question to the board in general.
I googled and found one semi-recent source.
http://nocache.therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/170-more-blog-posts-from-david-william-pear/1984-africa-slavery-king-cotton-and-the-industrial-revolution-
Here's the entire speech, with Q&A.
http://agoa.info/news/article/4572-us-government-diplomacy-briefing-on-sub-saharan-africa.html
Too long to post in its entirety but here's a snip of the beginning.
US Government: Diplomacy Briefing on Sub-Saharan Africa
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Source: State Department (USA)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Good afternoon, everyone. Well, thank you all very much and welcome again. I know you’ve been welcomed over and over again, but it’s a delight to have you here in the State Department for this briefing on Sub-Saharan Africa and the issues that affect the countries in that region and our relationship with them.
We are very pleased to have such a broad cross-section. I understand we even have some people who may be watching us, as I see on this screen here, from universities. And I delighted that we have you with us. I want to recognize the two members of Congress who I know are here. There may be others, but I’ve only seen two – Congressman Donald Payne from New Jersey, who is a longtime, very – (applause) – there he is – very strong, consistent supporter of Africa and Africa’s needs, and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee from Texas – there she is. (Applause.) And if I’m not mistaken, Sheila, one of the schools participating is Texas Southern University, which you have a relationship with, and I see them applauding on the screen up there. (Applause.)
I am very pleased to be the – I guess either the clean-up act or the dessert, whichever way you want to think about it, for this good, long discussion that you’ve all participated in. I know you’ve heard from Assistant Secretary Carson and other senior diplomats and leaders from the State Department and USAID, but I just wanted to hit a few of the high points of the Obama Administration’s connection to Africa during the last 16 months.
President Obama visited Africa very early in his tenure to underscore the region’s importance to the United States and gave a historic speech in Ghana that very clearly sounded a call to action and set forth our basic principle that we want a relationship not based on patronage, but on partnership. I was privileged to visit Africa on a very long 11-day trip last August and was able to carry that message and others throughout the continent.