US senators call for Gaddafi’s assassination: Republicans support Libyah frreedooooom

[Hannah Bell]

Senior leaders of the US Congress used appearances on CNN’s “State of the Union” program yesterday to brazenly call for the assassination of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a major escalation of air strikes to achieve the war’s real aim—the installation of a compliant puppet regime.

Five weeks of bombing have failed to bring about Gaddafi’s downfall, primarily due to continued support for the government in the capital Tripoli and the military and political weakness of the anti-Gaddafi forces based in the eastern city of Benghazi. Opposition fighters have made no significant gains in the east of the country and pro-government troops have maintained a siege of the opposition-held western city of Misrata, despite almost daily NATO bombardments.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN: “Right now there’s just not enough momentum by the rebels... So my recommendation to NATO and the administration is to cut the head of the snake off. Go to Tripoli, start bombing Gaddafi’s inner circle, their compounds, their military headquarters.”

Republican Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain, who visited Benghazi last Friday to meet with members of the opposition Transitional National Council, called for the immediate US recognition of the rebel body so that money and armaments could be sent. McCain declared that the former Gaddafi ministers, CIA-linked figures and Islamists who are known to be in the council “represent the legitimate aspirations of the Libyan people...” Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman—the one-time vice presidential candidate of the Democratic Party—joined the campaign for escalation and echoed Graham’s call to assassinate Gaddafi...


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/liby-a25.shtml

[napoleon_in_rags]

1. I support Libyan freedom.

I'll never forget going to the first protests in Seattle after the Iraq war started, they had guys with M16s on rooftops pointed at us. Scary, but they didn't pull the trigger. In these middle east protests they did pull the trigger, these entrenched 30 year dictators are actually ordering them to pull the trigger on their own people, to kill them. This is a different beast than the muddled lead up to the Iraq war, this is a clear and present situation where intervention can save lives. I don't blame our government for opting not to do it because we are low on cash, but I don't blame them for doing it either, so long as they don't forget that the revolution there belongs to the Arab peoples, not the US.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[ellisonz]

8. Then what is the intervention based on, if not democracy?

[Hannah Bell]

10. the intervention is based on democracy? surely you jest.

[ellisonz]

11. No, I read for detail.

“2. Stresses the need to intensify efforts to find a solution to the crisis which responds to the legitimate demands of the Libyan people and notes the decisions of the Secretary-General to send his Special Envoy to Libya and of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union to send its ad hoc High-Level Committee to Libya with the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution;

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10200.doc.htm

I think the UN resolution is pretty clear that this is going to be a process fundamentally based on democratic principles. Please consult the statement of French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe who concluded his statement before the vote: "The Security Council had acted to ensure that democracy prevailed."

[EFerrari]

17. What is so democratic about assassination?

[aquart]

2. Are you saying Dems want him to live?

Seriously, I thought the only question was who who would need
the bloodstain remover.

[Hannah Bell]

3. I didn't realize political assassination was part of the New Democratic consensus.

who knew.

[TheWraith]

4. I'm sure most of us would prefer him getting put on trial.

But I seriously doubt it'll happen. He's not the type to be brought in alive. He'll put a bullet in his head first.

[Hannah Bell]

5. many of us would enjoy putting george bush on trial too. he's killed a lot more people.

not like you or i have anything to do with it, though.

not like the global capitalist cartel gives a damn what you or i think; don't deceive yourself.

sure is interesting to me that political assassination is now discussed openly & gets the democratic seal of approval, though.

[LLStarks]

7. It's not. But I'd rather him die than civilians in Tripoli, Misrata, and Benghazi. nt

[Hannah Bell]

9. maybe you should tell obama to stop bombing them.

[dionysus]

19. yes. you are right. obama killed everyone that's died in this conflict. comrade ghadaffi is the wind

beneath our wings...

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

18. Do you think the extra judicial killing of Gaddafi will stop a civil war?

[aquart]

22. Now that's a serious question. Not mine, though.

I simply asked if Dems, as opposed to Republicans, want Gaddafi to live.

But yours is a much deeper, more strategic question. I like it.

Have we determined if this is a "civil war"? Which factions are fighting each other? Which are allied? Is there anyone on Gaddafi's side that is fit and ready to assume control if he falls? Would that make it worse? For whom?

Would the hired mercenaries lay down their arms if Gaddafi is killed? Who would that leave in the fight?

And if the answer to all of that is...cut off the head and the dragon stops cold...what would you say then?

BTW, I don't think it would stop the fighting. It would simply move up the timeline of the power struggle. This sort of thing is never smooth. Tunisia isn't sorted. Neither is Egypt. They are both at the beginning.

So, do we want Gaddafi to live?

[EFerrari]

25. "We" seem to be bombing Tripoli so it's had to see how anyone

could make the case that the Democrats want a democratic process.

[daleo]

30. There's a difference between not "wanting someone to live"

And "killing someone".

In everyday life I can wish ill will on anyone I don't like, but killing them is considered murder.

[aquart]

20. You did not answer my question.

Do Democrats want Gaddafi to live?

I, myself, am not a New Democrat, whatever the hell that is. I'm an ordinary Democrat and I am not part of a cult of saints.

ANSWER THE QUESTION.

[Hannah Bell]

28. it's a stupid question. i can't speak for "democrats". The democratic party

leadership apparently doesn't want him to live & is openly espousing assassination.

Something that wouldn't have been accepted only a few decades ago.

Some "democrats" are ok with that, it seems.

[malaise]

12. Not only Senators it's discussed in the media

as if they were giving a weather forecast.
Overnight a drone hit the Gaddafi compound.

[Distant Observer]

13. Supporters of the "Humanitarian Action" are morally mired in the lies and deceptions of the Allies

and their rebel proxy force. The whole murderous scam is disgusting.

[JohnyCanuck]

14. Libya: another neocon war

David Swanson
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 April 2011 19.00 BST


Liberal supporters of this 'humanitarian intervention' have merely become useful idiots of the same old nefarious purposes

snip

Former supreme allied commander Europe of Nato, from 1997 to 2000, Wesley Clark claims that in 2001, a general in the Pentagon showed him a piece of paper and said:

"I just got this memo today or yesterday from the office of the secretary of defence upstairs. It's a, it's a five-year plan. We're going to take down seven countries in five years. We're going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan, we're going to come back and get Iran in five years."

That agenda fit perfectly with the plans of Washington insiders, such as those who famously spelled out their intentions in the reports of the thinktank called the Project for the New American Century. The fierce Iraqi and Afghan resistance didn't fit at all. Neither did the nonviolent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. But taking over Libya still makes perfect sense in the neoconservative worldview. And it makes sense in explaining war games used by Britain and France to simulate the invasion of a similar country.

The Libyan government controls more of its oil than any other nation on earth, and it is the type of oil that Europe finds easiest to refine. Libya also controls its own finances, leading American author Ellen Brown to point out an interesting fact about those seven countries named by Clark:

"What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland. The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that 'six months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.' According to a Russian article titled 'Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Gaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar', Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the US and the European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa. <…> If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalised oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and healthcare continue to be free."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/21/libya-muammar-gaddafi

[Distant Observer]

15. Back to the old PNAC regime-change plans -- They have not let go of those ambitions

[aquart]

24. Yeah. See, that's not all that's going on.

But I love a good black and white sensibility. Really flexible.

[Angry Dragon]

16. Here we have elected officials calling for the death of

a countries leader, I wonder how much they would like it if someone called for the death of government officials here??

These guys sound like terrorists to me.

[backscatter712]

21. Explain to me why whacking Gaddafi would be bad?

The way I see it, killing one charismatic psychopath could save hundreds of thousands of lives.

[aquart]

23. Ah. Would it were so simple.

Those lives may go anyway and it's just a matter of when. There has been one triumphant power structure for decades. There is sorting out to be done at all levels and much of it won't be pretty and some of it will be quite ugly. And we may absolutely hate the end result. Or not.

Also, WHO whacks Gaddafi is very important. Hope it's not us. This needs to be a Libyan decision. They're the ones who get to play soccer with his head if they want, not us.

[EFerrari]

26. Just like it did in Iraq. Not to mention

assassination, besides being illegal, never works that way.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

27. I think the pukes are setting up President Obama

why this sudden support for escalation?

"We can't cut defense spending. The President just got us in a new war!"
Anything bad happens...its the President's war.

Notice all these calls for escalation and no calls for a congressional authorization for war.

The pukes are NOT our friends.
They are not doing this because the president persuaded them.
this is a set-up.

[bvar22]

29. Gadaffi used to be our friend,

but then he said the "N" word...
"Nationalize...as in the Oil Companies.
In 2009, he demanded and got a bigger share of the Profits ($5.4Billion),


Now, the Oil Co puppets in the USA are demanding his head on a platter.
Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

"They" didn't even bother to change The Marketing,
which goes to show you CAN fool some of the people ALL the time.


If you are not FOR the New OIL WAR in Libya,
then you are WITH The Communists AlQaeda Saddam The Terrorists Qaddafi!!!

[spanone]

31. these three stooges never met a war they didn't embrace..ultimate bipartisan hawks