Monday, March 14, 2011

Nuclear Power






Illustration:  The al-Quaeda flag (means "the foundation").  In one of those announcements you only hear once on the radio before the bosses shut it down, they were quoted as encouraging the rebels in Libya to fight and continue the struggle against the infidel, Gaddafi.  And you thought he was making it all up, didn't you?


ANYWAY, ONWARD:

I find it difficult to get very surprised at the news from Japan.  I have always considered it a truism that these plants were dangerous (well, since I was 15, anyway).    When they start with "Our friend, the atom," crap, they even said that they did not know what to do with the waste, but nothing had to be done for at least 20 years and by then technology would have solved that problem.  That was in 1958. 

We are still using fission, not fusion (which is what gave us the enormous calculations of the energy that could be produced, and without much waste).  Well, forget fusion -- it is not going to happen until after you are dead.

I think the whole issue takes a back seat, is ignored, because most people haven't the slightest idea as to what something as simple as an isotope is.  What about half-life?  Did you know that there is no such thing as "depleted uranium'?  It is just enhanced uranium, a different isotope that has gone back to a previous isotope level.  Yeah, glad I was able to clear that one up.

So, now it is agreed that three reactors are in a state of melt-down and some radioactive stuff has a half-life of 17,000 years.  They are giving out tablets for that, take one daily.




Bring DN! to Your Community

Today’s Show



RECENT SHOWS

Friday, March 11, 2011

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Wednesday, March 09, 2011



BLOG



Podcasting & Torrents



Japan Facing Biggest Catastrophe Since Dawn of Nuclear Age

Share354
Japan
Japan remains in a state of emergency three days after a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit the country. An estimated 10,000 people have died, and Japan is facing the worst nuclear crisis since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On Monday, a second explosion hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and a third reactor lost its cooling system, raising fears of a meltdown. Radiation levels have been detected as far as 100 miles away. Dozens of people have tested positive for radiation exposure, and hundreds of thousands of have been evacuated, with the number expected to rise. [includes rush transcript–partial]
Filed under Nuclear Power
Guests:
Yurika Ayukawa, professor of the environment at Chiba University in Japan. She is formerly with the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center.
Harvey Wasserman, longtime anti-nuclear activist and the editor of nukefree.org. He is also a senior adviser to GreenPeace USA and the author of the book SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth.
Kevin Kamps, specialist in nuclear waste at the nuclear watchdog, Beyond Nuclear. Last year he was in Japan assessing the state of its nuclear facilities.
Arnie Gundersen, nuclear industry executive for many years before blowing the whistle on the company he worked for in 1990, when he found inappropriately stored radioactive material. He is now chief engineer at Fairewinds Associates.
Japan Al Jazeera English report on Minami Sanriku,
Related stories

Rush Transcript

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...

Related Links

Related Democracy Now! Stories

AMY GOODMAN: Japan is facing its biggest catastrophe since the dawn of the nuclear age, when the U.S. dropped two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the wake of the massive earthquake and tsunami Friday, a second explosion has hit a Japanese nuclear plant. Monday’s explosion, caused by a hydrogen buildup, blew the roof off a containment building at Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor 3, two days after a blast hit reactor 1. Eleven people were injured in the blast.
Officials say the reactor core inside was undamaged, but now a third reactor at the plant has lost its cooling system, and news agencies are reporting a meltdown of the fuel rods cannot be ruled out.
While Japanese officials are playing down any health risk, Pentagon officials reported Sunday helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates, suggesting widening environmental contamination. And the U.S. Navy moved one of its aircraft carriers from the area after detecting low-level radiation 100 miles offshore. The New York Times reports radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from the area around the plant. At least 22 people have tested positive for radiation exposure, with the number expected to rise.
Technicians have been battling to cool reactors at the plant since Friday. They’re using an untested method of pouring in a mixture of seawater and boric acid. Re-establishing normal cooling of the reactors would require restoring electric power, which was cut in the earthquake and tsunami and now may require plant technicians working in areas that have become highly contaminated with radioactivity.
The New York Times reports, quote, "In a country where memories of a nuclear horror of a different sort in the last days of World War II weigh heavily on the national psyche and national politics, the impact of continued venting of long-lasting radioactivity from the plants is hard to overstate."
Harvey Wasserman is a longtime anti-nuclear activist and editor of nukefree.org. He’s also senior adviser to Greenpeace U.S.A. and the author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth. He joins us from Columbus, Ohio.
We’re also joined by Kevin Kamps, specialist in nuclear waste at the nuclear watchdog Beyond Nuclear. Last year he was in Japan assessing the state of nuclear facilities. He’s joining us from Washington, D.C.
And we’re joined via Democracy Now! video stream from Burlington, Vermont, by Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear industry executive for many years before blowing the whistle on the company he worked for in 1990, when he found inappropriately stored radioactive material, now chief engineer at Fairewinds Associates.
And we are going first, though, to Japan. We are going to be speaking with Yurika Ayukawa. She is joining us from Tokyo, formerly with the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center, now a professor of the environment at Chiba University in Japan.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the latest with the nuclear reactors?
YURIKA AYUKAWA: Hello. This is Yurika Ayukawa.
The latest one is the threatening of meltdown by nuclear reactor 2 at Fukushima 1 site. So, this is the third reactor that’s going to be in a very critical situation. All of the fuel rods seems to be out of water, and they are pouring in seawater, but they couldn’t detect how much water they’ve put in, in the beginning, and now they said it’s going in, but still there is a lot of—the whole rod is exposed. And the latest news is that they found some radioactive materials, like—they didn’t say the name, but I feel it’s like cesium—around the site. So, there must be melting going on inside the reactor.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to Harvey Wasserman. He’s speaking to us from Columbus, Ohio, long experience in dealing with nuclear plants in this country. Harvey, this latest news of the Japanese nuclear reactor, water levels inside almost empty, according to the power plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power. Then, the news agency Jiji saying a meltdown of fuel rods inside the Fukushima Daiichi complex’s No. 2 reactor could not be ruled out. Can you explain the significance of this, the exposure of the fuel rods?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, it’s hugely significant, and it’s a very, very dangerous situation. I should note that the first reactor at Fukushima is identical to the Vermont Yankee plant, and which is now up for relicensing and which the people of Vermont are trying to shut. And we should also note that this kind of accident, this kind of disaster, could have occurred at four reactors in California, had the 9.0-Richter-scale earthquake hit close to Diablo Canyon at San Luis Obispo or San Onofre between L.A. and San Diego. We could very well now be watching Los Angeles or San Diego being evacuated, had this kind of thing happened in California. And, of course, the issue is the same in Vermont. There are 23 reactors in the United States that are identical or close to identical to the first Fukushima reactor.
Now, this exposure of fuel is about as bad as it gets. It means that these fuel rods, superheated fuel rods, could melt if they are exposed to water, which they’re trying to pour water in there. It could create radioactive steam, conceivably bow off the containment and result in another Chernobyl and a horrific, horrendous release of radiation that could, and in fact would, come to the United States within a week or so, as the Chernobyl radiation came to California within 10 days. This is about as bad as it gets. And we are not 100 percent sure we’re getting fully accurate information. We only know that the worst case scenario is very much a possibility. There are 10 reactors at the Fukushima site—two separate sites, one with six reactors and one with four. And the fact that a U.S. aircraft carrier has detected significant radiation 60 miles away is very much a dangerous sign. It means that radiation releases are ongoing and probably will only get worse.
AMY GOODMAN: Here in the United States, some have raised concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants located in earthquake-prone areas like California, like you, Harvey Wasserman. But speaking to Meet the Press yesterday, Marvin Fertel, the president of the NEI, the Nuclear Energy Institute, expressed confidence about the safety of nuclear plants in California.
CHUCK TODD: We have a couple of nuclear power plants in earthquake zones, or at least in California. Is there a concern? Should Americans be concerned about the fact that these power plants are sitting in earthquake zones? Are they safe?
MARVIN FERTEL: Yeah, all of our power plants, whether they’re in California, which is a high earthquake area, or in the Midwest or other places, are required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to design to be able to withstand the maximum credible earthquake. And the NRC continues to update and upgrade what the requirements are.
CHUCK TODD: And you said post-9-11 that there were some extra upgrades put in to make sure that—that these nuclear plants could handle a total power shutdown, correct?
MARVIN FERTEL: Yeah. We’ve done things post-9-11 to make sure that if something happened in our plant, like happened in Japan, where you lost all power, that you could get water to the core and continue to cool it.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Marvin Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the energy industry, speaking with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. Harvey Wasserman, your response?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, that’s what he’s paid to say. You know, I was in Japan in the mid-1970s. That’s exactly what they said about Fukushima. I spoke at the Kashiwazaki plant, which, less than five years ago, was also hit by a huge earthquake, and seven reactors shut there. The people of Japan were repeatedly assured that this could not happen. Those reactors in Japan, and the ones in United States, are designed to withstand a 7.5-Richter earthquake, and this is a 9.0, which is more than 10—a significantly higher impact than what they’re designed to withstand. We’re also seeing pressures inside these reactor pressure vessels and containment domes that are in excess of design capacity. The nuclear industry is defending a product that cannot withstand Mother Nature, both in the United States and Japan.
You have to remember that the Japanese industry is highly advanced. Both Westinghouse and General Electric, the two major purveyors of nuclear plants in the United States, are now owned by Japanese companies. This is not the Soviet Union. This is a highly advanced country that cannot cope with nuclear power plants that have been—sustained damage that was predicted. We predicted that these nuclear plants would be hit by earthquakes and by tsunamis, and the Japanese government and the nuclear industry laughed it off, just as Mr. [Fertel] has done yesterday. Every nuclear plant in the United States is susceptible to this kind of damage and this kind of disaster, and it’s time that they be shut, in any kind of prudent mindset that will protect the people of this country and our economy, by the way, as we’re going to see what’s happening to the Japanese economy.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re speaking with anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman, speaking to us from Columbus, Ohio. When we come back, we’ll speak with a specialist in nuclear waste who has recently returned from looking at the nuclear power plants in Japan. And we’ll speak with a nuclear whistleblower from Vermont who says one of the plants in Japan is similar to, almost the same as, the one in Vermont, that even the Vermont governor is attempting to shut down. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
[break]
Posted by Unknown at 1:17 PM 0 comments
Labels:

Daylight Savings Time -- KC

Just an idea of how much sense Daylight Savings Times means.  See, it was started, we are told, so farmers would have an extra hour of sunlight to work in.  Now, the recent activity in Japan actually sped up the earth, so you can draw your own conclusions from that.  The point is, unlike Moses, we can not make the earth stand still for an hour, so the sun is still visible for the same number of hours each day.  What it actually means is some authority say "Ok, everybody, wake up one hour earlier until I say so, and we do."

Well, here is a photo I took from inside my window at the landscape on the first day of daylight savings time.  It is Kansas City, Missouri, looking towards the state of Kansas.  If you look very closely, you may see the micro-organisms coming in to evolve as such activity is illegal in Kansas.
Posted by Unknown at 1:08 PM 0 comments
Labels:

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Israel, Nazis, Gaza, and Dehumanization





One of you sent this off to a radio station and raised several very good issues with it.  I am posting it in order to share it with a wider audience (since I'm pretty sure that this guy Mike is unlikely to give it wider circulation).  One of the more interesting aspects of this entire discussion, and it is not given much attention, is how "people" are ignored.  Once you can label people who hold a certain belief, or indeed are of a different extraction, some groupthink term such as "terrorists," "rebels," "Nazis," and "Communists," you no longer need to deal with the fact that people are involved.  This was very much in force during Vietnam when would hear announcements that 45,000 "Communists" were killed.  Or Viet Cong.  Now, we use the term "terrorists" to describe anyone who thinks differently than we do, and forget about our official definition of the term. 

I personally get tired of how people throw terms around until they are meaningless.  Genocide is another such term.  We can find a legal definition of the term:
a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
This does not constitution the sort of actions we ascribe to certain leaders of certain countries to justify invasion (which we call "intervention").

Anyway, here is the letter:

*   I'm sorry Xxxxx, but you and Justice Goldstone are dancing all around the outrageous war against Gaza with 1400 people killed.  Not only that, but decades of brutal terrible treatment by Israel of Palestinians and theft of their land.

    How can these notoriously infamous crimes be discussed so blandly?

    To me it's like looking back at the Warsaw Ghetto and trying to find a reasonable middle ground between the 'two sides' of Nazis and Jews.

  ********************************

  I know that's extreme and insulting to the unconditionally supported government of Israel, but I am sick and tired of coddling a country, Israel, that uses such excessive force and has world wide condemnation.

o

Alan Watts, the un-rutted Sausalito houseboat philosopher once in our midst opined that Nazis got the 'chosen race' idea from the Jews. I suppose behind every tribe or nation lurks a sense of having been specially singled out and chosen. I'm sure Joseph Campbell would say so. Campbell was accused of anti-Semitism at least partly because he felt Jews hadn't been able to let go of their 'we're special' tribally inspired mythology, as other more cosmopolitan or 'evolved' groups had done.  It seems strange that Hegel's prediction

 that Judaism would vanish through natural evolution didn't come true. Religions don't disappear, become outmoded or become superseded by more 'advanced' versions.  Jesus opened 'the nations' to Jewish salvation, some would say,

 but Judaism itself wasn't about to be absorbed into a universalization of itself.  I would argue that ZIonism is a retrenchment of that more original tribal religious separateness.

 

  I would love to hear a discussion of 'Zionism' on Forum.  Is there something believed to give Israel the right to accumulate land from Palestinians?   Bible or Torah promises?  Is this part of Zionism or not?  Or are there 'wings' of Zionism, right and left?

 

  Many younger US Jews reject Zionism as an outmoded and warlike form of neo-colonialism, determined to get land away from Palestinians and others by force if necessary.

 

  Is there a 'good' Zionism and a 'bad' Zionism?  How does AIPAC and the ADL, as well as the Israel Lobby in D.C.  factor into Zionism's influence on US policy?  Does any Congressperson dare criticize Israel since a charge of anti-Semitism is political death? 

 
  Who is it that decides that criticism of Israel is 'anti-Semitic', as we have seen with Justice Goldstone and Jimmy Carter, both of whom are self-confessed strong supporters of Israel.   It's still not clear to me what ubiquitous force rears up to defend Israel again and again from even the smallest critical questions. Is it widespread in our mass media, as averred by many?

    There's a strong whiff of '1984' about all of this, a miasma of 'never dare question Israel' that is very un-American in nature.  Examining what Israel does to Palestinians isn't generally open to discussion, and certain people, like John Pilger, are not welcome on US media. 

    Justice Goldstone briefly alluded to some of the horrors of the Gaza invasion, but seemed to downplay it, perhaps in the interest of keeping things unemotional and objective.

   His voice, cultured, urbane and sophisticated, reminiscent of the English actor Ian McKellen's,  seemed above such is tasteful subjects, as perhaps a judge's voice should sound, I don't know.

 

  But the whole idea of the US  vetoing any and all UN resolutions against Israel is inexcusable.  If I am wrong about that statement I would love to hear a program devoted to exploring the reality of our unwavering commitment to Israel.  Is there any other country in the world, including ourselves, to which we give such unflinching loyalty?  I realize reasons are always given, the resolutions are 'unfairly' targeting Israel, and what about the 'other side', those Palestinian terrorists with weapons of very little destruction?

      Michael, I have nothing but praise for your abilities as an interviewer and scholar, writer and professor, thank you for your excellent work. 

    You let a little of the volcano of political magma about Israel escape today. But we need a lot more 'hot truth' to flow out around us before we can regain our integrity and health as a nation.  But a sincere thanks is in order.

    Maybe some day we can meet over coffee.  I'd love to hear your personal take on a lot of this stuff.  As I've said before, we're both Ph.D's, and like to explore the dimensions and parameters of a discussion.  My main concern is that our media is not very open when Israel comes into  focus.  Having John Pilger on Forum would be a nice additional dimension don't you think?

 

Or if you don't think so, perhaps you could tell me why sometime.  But enough, please have a wonderful sunny day in SF!

 

And as they say ( I'm told) in South Africa,

 

  Alles van die beste!

 

 


Posted by Unknown at 1:13 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Gaddafi and History

There is little point in my continuing to point out the fact surrounding the situation in Libya as everyone seems pretty set on this issue.  I had decided just to take a long vacation from the entire bit, but somehow I can across this which is quite accurate (and a bit frightening).  

I'm sure many of you remember six British paratroopers just recently returned by the "rebels".  I guess they just happened to jump out over the place.  

Some have told me he would be gone by now, escaped somewhere else.  He is still there and is not going away.

Finally, to rephrase what someone said, you can see what great healthcare he provides.  A man with just six weeks to live in a Scottish hospital is still alive now 18 months later.

I have no idea what happened to the illustrations, but I decided not to edit and simply leave the article stand.  The illustrations really are not needed anyway.


*******************************************
Petroleum and Empire in North Africa. NATO Invasion of Libya Underway
Muamar Gaddafi Accused of Genocide

by Keith Harmon Snow
Global Research, March 2, 2011
allthingspass.com

Email this article to a friend
Print this article

3diggsdigg StumbleUpon Submit 1465Share

Are events unfolding in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt more about petro-terrorism or about freedom and democracy? How much oil is there in North Africa? Who is in control of that oil? What is the relationship between the West and Muamar Gaddafi? Is he really the terrorist we've all been led to believe he is? Who is the Libyan "opposition" and who are the "rebels" we read about?
Presented with this story are petroleum industry concessions maps **  for North Africa that people might want to ponder in between the Western propaganda on Libya. Amidst the full-court press of propaganda presented by the western media and State Department disinformation apparatus we find that Muamar Gaddafi is even accused of committing genocide against his own people. Are there double standards at work?


Gaddafi & Amin in Gulu 1973 bordered.jpg

An original photograph; backside text reads: Al Haji Amin (centre) is introducing military senior officers to his brother Col. Gaddafi, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command of Arab republic of Libya, shortly on arrival at Gulu Airfield [norther Uganda] to perform the official handing over of aircrafts to Uganda Airforce, March 3, 1974.

From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli
On September 1, 1969 the pro-western regime that had ruled in Libya was overthrown by Colonel Muamar Gaddafi and his officers. At the time, Libya was home to the largest US Air Base (Wheelus Air Base) in North Africa. Agreements between the USA and Libya signed in 1951 and 1954 granted the USAF the use of Wheelus Air Base and its El Watia gunnery range for gunnery and bombing training and for transport and bombing stopovers until 1971. During the Cold War the base was pivotal to expanding US military power under  the Strategic Air Command, and an essential base for fighter and reconnaissance missions. The Pentagon also used the base -- and the remote Libyan desert -- for missile launch testing: the launch area was located 15 miles east of Tripoli. Considered a 'little America on the shores of the Mediteranean', the base housed some 4600 US military personnel until its evacuation in 1970.

With the discovery of oil in Libya in 1959, a very poor desert country became a very rich little western protectorate. US and European companies had huge stakes in the extremely lucrative petroleum and banking sectors, but these were soon nationalized by Gaddafi. Thus Libya overnight joined the list of US 'enemy' or 'rogue' states that sought autonomy and self-determination outside the expanding sphere of western Empire. Further cementing western hatred of the new regime, Libya played a leading role of the 1973 oil embargo against the US and maintained cooperative relations with the Soviet Union. Gaddafi also reportedly channeled early oil wealth into national free health care and education.

Many of the concessions in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt involve state-owned oil companies. The US/European/Israeli nexus seeks to dislodge state-ownership -- to whatever extent it actually exists -- and dislodge any Chinese workers or companies involved in the oil exploitation, and replace these with western companies and western agents. 
[1]
ALGERIA & TUNISIA OIL SECTOR MAPS 
(Note the HUNT OIL Concession in the lower right, in NIGER: HUNT OIL is out of Texas.)


_Algeria-Tunisia-Oil-Map001.gif



At one time Gaddafi played around with Idi Amin, but his ties to other despots -- such as Tony Blair and George H. W. Bush -- are far more notable, though far less advertised. Remember that Gaddafi has served the prerogatives of imperialism for years, even while being presented as the world's premier terrorist.

The CIA has long wanted to eliminate and replace Muamar Gaddafi. President Reagan bombed Tripoli, killing Gaddafi's infant daughter: the United States bombing of Libya (code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon) comprised the joint USAF, Navy, and Marines air-strikes against Libya on April 15, 1986. The US CIA brought down the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 flight over Scotland in 1988 and blamed this on Gaddafi. 

In recent years Gaddafi has played along with the western fiction of Al-Queda, though it seems likely that some of the true mercenaries in Libya today are 'Al-Queda' terrorists trained by the United States to serve US interests in places like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and now Libya. However, the CIA has always had their sites on Gaddafi. 
Libyan Dinar Note001.jpg
Libyan currency 2009

Note the double standard in how the western press presents the accusations of Gaddafi using mercenaries, as if it is something unique to Gaddafi and Libya, and not something we ever do. 

National front for the Salvation of Libya


In almost all western media accounts, the so-called "opposition" in Libya includes the unspecified, unnamed, unidentified "rebels" of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). These are not innocent 'pro-democracy' protestors who began with a 'peaceful sit-in' as reported by the New York Times and uncritically repeated everywhere else.

Reportage of atrocities in Darfur, Sudan (2003-2011) and Rwanda (1990-1994) was always blamed on the governments (Omar Bashir in Khartoum and Juvenal Habyarimana in Kigali) with no context to the foreign backed insurgency and intervention occurring, which in both cases involved the US, UK and Israel. Similarly, in Libya today, there is no context or history to the FNSL 'rebels': they are categorically presented as the good guys, no matter that they seem to have appeared out of thin air. No one explains who these people are who are cited by the New York Times or CNN or Democracy Now as sources.
P1010042.jpg

Street scene in Tripoli, September 2009.



The FNSL was part of the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition held in London in 2005, and British resources are being used to support the FNSL and other 'opposition' in Libya. The FNSL was actually formed in October 1981 in Sudan under Colonel Jaafar Nimieri-- the US puppet dictator who was openly known to be a Central Intelligence Agency operative, and who ruled Sudan ruthlessly from 1977 to 1985. The FNSL held its national congress in the USA in July 2007. Reports of 'atrocities' and civilian deaths are being channeled into the western press from operations in Washington DC, and the opposition FNSL is reportedly organizing resistance and military attacks from both inside and outside Libya.

Italy and France are also said to be backing these opposition groups, as the Italian and French oil companies AGIP and ELF and others seek to chop off and eat their pieces of the predatory pie. The US, Britain and Israel seek to insure control of the petroleum sector in advance of competitor corporations from other European countries.
National Endowment for (non) Democracy


In 1983, the Pentagon, USAID, US State Department, and the CIA were all involved in the creation and implementation of 'Project Democracy' -- National Security Decision Directive 77 (NSDD 77) -- and this led to the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy. After that, many of the tactics used in covert interventions were shifted away from the CIA and onto the NED, whose involvement with covert operations and foreign interventions are nonetheless well-established.

A 'soft' intervention CIA front, the National Endowment for Democracy has been deeply involved in Libya along with the CIA fronted Freedom House (under their Blue Umbrella program and others). These entities have backed 'opposition', supported propaganda campaigns and so-called 'pro-democracy' movements, and are known to be involved with backing armed insurgents and interventions.

NED works its overt intelligence sector magic through four organizations under its (own) umbrella: National democratic Institute; International republican Institute, Center for Private Enterprise, and the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity.  NED is closely aligned with US foreign policy interests and achieves its mission through the revolving doors between US Government and the NED Board of Directors. 

Some of these NED directors include: former US Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger (Nixon) and Madeleine Albright (Clinton), former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci (Reagan), former National Security Council ChairZbigniew Brzezinski (Carter), former NATO Supreme Allied Command in Europe, General Wesley K. Clark (Clinton), and the current head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz (George W. Bush).

Freedom House is supportive of NED programs but has been around since its creation by Elanor Roosevelt and they have been very active against Libya. Freedom House is funded by, amongst others, UNILEVER Corporation, USAID, and the US Information Agency (USIA). Freedom House, in alliance with USIA, has provided covert and overt "Radio Free' disinformation programs all over the world since at least 1952: e.g. Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia. 

Past and present Freedom House trustees include: former CIA director R. James Woosley; former national security adviser (at the time of the US invasion of Congo-Zaire) Anthony Lake; Harvard professor Samuel Huntington; UNILEVER executive Ned Bandler; CIA insider Andrew Young; former Joseph Mobutu confidant and national security insider Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick; former NED director and International Crisis Group trustee Zbigniew Brzezinski; USAID intelligence operative J. Brian Atwood (USAID administrator who oversaw the US-backed genocide against millions of Hutu refugees in Zaire, 1996-1998) and many more.

Freedom House is also very likely affiliated with the phantom US Office of Strategic Information (OSI), formed after September 11, 2001. OSI is said to have been reorganized, with all its original functions reassigned to the Office of Global Communications, Information Awareness Office (IAO), and the newly reactivated Counter-Disinformation/Misinformation Team (Counter-Information Team). However, then Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld issued statements affirming that the OSI's operations would continue.
Rogue State Painted with Blatant Propaganda

In the ABC LITELINE report FNSL Leader Speaks from Washington we find the Washington monument in the background for an interview with an Arab agent being used by the western propaganda system as a credible source -- but with zero explanations of who he is or why his claims might be false. 

FNSL operative Irahim Sahad speaks freely, making any claim he likes, and nothing he says is challenged or counter-balanced. Sahad suggests that the UN Security Council MUST be convened to stop the genocide being committed by Gaddafi against his own people. Ibrahim Sahad's bias is unveiled by such statements as "The UN Security Council was convened when just one man was killed in Lebabon -- so it should be convened to address the most brutal use of live ammunition, heavy arms and mercenaries." The claim employs a double-standard, saying in short that Lebanese lives are worth more than Libyan, which is not at all the case, and that the United Nations takes serious one man's life in Lebanon, so they should take far more serious the monumental loss of life [claimed] in Libya.

Here are some of the media's rallying cries making headlines everywhere the English language is used: 

* Gaddafi killing his own people!  
* West worried that Gaddafi may use Nerve Gas!
* Heavy Weaponry Used Against Civilians!
* Heavy Arms Used in Libyan Crackdown!
* Gaddafi Committing Crimes Against Humanity!

The death tolls in Iraq, Afghanistan and Congo -- by US/NATO/ISRAELI forces -- far surpass anything that might have occurred in Libya. Meanwhile, most 'news' on Libya is based on false accusations and false assertions -- such as the THREAT of nerve gas being used. 

The 'international community' repeatedly enforced or renewed sanctions against Libya in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2004, it was established that Washington and London were grossly exaggerating claims of Gaddafi's development of nuclear and chemical weapons. In Afghanistan the US is using weapons of mass destruction and has been since the invasion of 2001: these include phosgene and uranium weapons. A deeper issue might be the loss of certain nuclear weapons, as claimed by sources in London, which reportedly went missing from US/NATO stocks. Claims are that these weapons made their way into teh hands of British arms dealer John Bredenkamp, a long time crony of the Robert Mugabe gang in Zimbabwe, and that they may have been sold to Libya, Yemen or North Korea.
[2] 
LIBYA

Libya-Oil-Map001.gif


[2a] 
LIBYA
Map SIRTE BASIN

Libya-(Sirte-Basin)-Oil-Map.gif



Muamar Gaddafi Sides with Empire
 
"[T]he fundamental problem and issue before the people in the region is that the US rulers seek imperial control and imposition of semi-colonial country-selling regimes; the more autocratic and brutal, the better from the point of the US imperialism that is unrelenting history," reports Ralph Schoenman, in  'US Imperialism Against Democratic ME'. "Every time the population is given the opportunity to shape its own destiny, to seek its national independence, to seek its own control over its own resources, to seeks its own sovereignty and determination of its own future, that is incompatible with the US imperialism. 

When Barack Obama was accepted by the US people as the new president, Gaddafi praised Obama and described Obama's  White House housesit as "a victory against racism" and he urged the first Black U.S. president "to lead his country boldly and with integrity."

"The Black people's struggle has made tremendous advances against racism in America," Gaddafi said. "It was God who created color. Today President Obama, son of a Kenyan father, a true son of Africa, has made it in the United States of America."

At a speech he gave in his private tent in Tripoli in September 2008, Gaddafi rambled and muddled and zipped his all-over-the-place speech up as quick as he began. Is he a desert mystic? Did he write the infamous "Green Book" or was it ghost-written? Is his rambling speech emblematic of his propensity to try to please, to do what he likes, to be careful not to say the wrong thing, while being unable to remain silent when the hypocrisies of the west are (or were) thrown up in his face?
Pentagon Invasion Already Underway 

The US will use any propaganda necessary to whip up American fervor over Gaddafi and justify Pentagon or MI6 or NATO operations. US and British warships sit off the coast of Libya -- and they don't sit there idly. The imposition of a 'no-fly' zone means that US/NATO planes can do as they like, with the understanding that what we are really talking about are possible bombing and fighter sorties against Libya.

US troops have already moved ashore in Libya, joining the 'opposition ' and 'rebel' forces in 'rebel' controlled territories. The US, France and Britain have already set up Bases in Libya. 
The recent report noted that British and US special forces entered Libyan port cities of Benghazi and Toburk on February 23 and 24.US covert operatives have been on the ground for weeks, in not much longer, whether they have entered by sea (SEALS) or by way of Niger, where the US has openly published information about its covert operations. (See, for example, the travelology reports by former U.S. Special Forces now 'journalist' Robert Kaplan in America's African Rifles a Pentagon massaged and approved propaganda feature in the pro-war Atlantic Monthly). Any opportunity to attack, destabilize, invade will be exploited by the Pentagon.

Of course, as this is written the US media is preparing the ground for the English news consuming masses to see the Pentagon invasion as a "humanitarian" mission in Libya. There is nothing humanitarian about the Pentagon, and there has never been.
[3] 
Egypt
Egypt-Oil-Map001.gif

The Desert Mystic
Libya is a country of approximately 6 million people, having a huge geographical area but low population density. Claims that Gaddafi has uplifted his people over the course of his 40 year dictatorship are false. Poverty is high throughout the country, and in Tripoli there are the obvious signs of capitalism: overcrowding, traffic, environmental pollution and destruction of nature. However, Gaddafi's "Green Book" -- if in fact it was written by him -- is worth reading. Had it been written by most anyone else who is opposed to the expansion of western empire with all its horrors, it would be more widely appreciated.

Gaddafi has funded Pan-African organizations and individuals, some of whom have very noble missions and serve to challenge the downtrodden, while he has also funded some armed factions involved in unjust wars or destabilizations. Gaddafi has funded Louis Farrakan and the Nation of Islam. He has funded Jean Pierre Bemba and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), the rebellion also backed by Yoweri Museveni, responsible for a very definitive genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
P1010027.jpg 

Human Rights Watch has reported that international arms dealer Victor Bout illegally shipped weapons into Congo-Zaire, picking them up in Libya and delivering them to Rwandan Hutu forces. However, Human Rights Watch is deeply compromised when it comes to reporting and not reporting the facts -- or selectively reporting them -- on Central Africa. If Gaddafi did supply or facilitate the provision of arms to Hutu insurgents in Congo, it may be one of the more reasonable actions he took: e.g. the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are forever misaligned by the Pentagon and its propaganda minions precisely because they fought against the illegal invasion of Rwanda by Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni. Meanwhile, it is Rwanda, Uganda and their foreign multinational corporate allies that are responsible for the preponderance of killing in Central Africa (not the FDLR). 

According to Amnesty International, another selective human rights organ serving western interests, Gaddafi also reportedly armed Sudanese in Darfur -- long before the current conflict began in 2003 -- to fight against western backed interventions in Chad and Sudan. 
 
Gaddafi reportedly owns land in Zimbabwe and may flee there or to other countries where repressive control is maintained in service to western interests. 

Muamar Gaddafi is/was the most recent chairman of the African Union, another elite organization designed to serve western exploitation -- or run by a cabal of thieves, at the very least, who all have the goods on each other, and so none will ever challenge the way things are -- while the people, the masses of Africa, everywhere suffer. 

The African Union (AU) signed on with Washington for the devastating neo-liberal trade and tarifs agreement known euphemistically as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The AU special report on genocide in Rwanda was a complete whitewash serving US/UK interests and protecting dictators Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni. The AU has also been slammed by African leaders for inaction and silence in various developments on the continent. 

Former AU chairman have included some of Africa's most criminal dictators, such as Dennis Sassou Nguesso, who has reigned with absolute military brutality in the Republic of Congo for some 20 years (with a gap from 1992-1997). Gabon's present ruler Albert-Bernard Bongo is the son-in-law of Dennis Sassou-Nguesso, and both have been sustained with millions of Elf petrol dollars (see, e.g., keith harmon snow: The Crimes of Bongo). Sassou-Nguesso's elite Cobra militia were also trained by French advisers and, like Colonel Joseph Mobutu, Sassou-Nguesso relied on Israeli security and intelligence for protection.

The AU's alliance with NATO began long ago, and it saw expanded joint military operations in Sudan, where the AU served as NATO's "African face" for US/UK and Israeli military interventions in the war for Darfur. For example, forces fighting for the NATO interests, commanded and commandeered under an AU banner, came from Paul Kagame's Rwanda Defense Forces (formerly called Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army) responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo and, then, Darfur. Rather than condemning western military expansion and different forms of AFRICOM or CIA-backed terrorism, for example, the AU backs the western war of annihilation in Somalia, involving Ugandan troops trained by US Special forces, and the Pentagon's expansion in Ethiopia, and support for dictator Meles Zenawi there. Ethiopia is the site of an ongoing genocide against the Annuak, Omo and Orono people -- and no one has reported the atrocities in the blood drenched oil-rich Ogaden basin there. What say the AU? 
In AFRICA: Global NATO Seeks to Recruit 50 New Military Partners, journalist Rick Rozoff reports: "A recent article in Kenya's Africa Review cited sources in the African Union (AU) disclosing that the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] is preparing to sign a military partnership treaty with the 53-nation AU." Rozoff explains that this is a likely maneuver against the spread of Chinese interests in the continent.
According to Black Commentator editor Glen Ford, who traveled to Tripoli in 2008, Gaddafi on the Outs, the man who ruled this not-so-little North African dictatorship is about finished. 
[5] 
SUDAN
(Darfur is the giant block 12 concession on the left side.)

_Sudan-Oil-Map-001.gif

And Now, The Gaddafi Genocide

Claims made by Libyan 'opposition' and reported in the western press that Gaddafi is committing genocide against his own people represent the height of western arrogance and hypocrisy. At this very moment the wars being prosecuted by the USA and its allies, including Japan, Europe, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia, far dwarf the 'atrocities' committed in Libya. While we have no credible reporting about who is killing, who is opposition, how many dead, etc., out of Libya, we have credible report after credible report establishing that the US and its allies have perpetrated massacres, tortures, and other atrocities, in the millions of people, in Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan - for a short list.

The claim of genocide here, akin to the one-sided charges against former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, or against Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, are one more clear example of the Politics of Genocide delineated in great detail by this writer and others. Reports in western media -- provided, again, by the FNSL and other western intelligence, covert operations or psychological operations flak organizations -- are filled with harsh language and characterizations not seen in reporting on or by western military campaigns. For example, in many western reports we can find, such as Gruesome Footage Proves Libya Using Heavy Arms makes claims that "newspapers obtained shocking footage of corpses with bodies blasted off and several torsos in Libyan hospitals."  

So there are several torsos. That is not quite genocide. Where are the images? If such images of death and destruction do appear it will be in sharp contrast to the complete whiteout on dead bodies in the Pentagon's other theaters of war, in the eastern Congo or Somalia, or in Afghanistan. 

Images of dead bodies can be produced and published but these are easily stripped of context. How do western audiences and propaganda consumers know that these are authentic and not recycled images of protests from Yemen or Bahrain dumped into the western press (with their willing acknowledgment) by Britain's MI-6, as has been alleged? Al-Jezeera shows its true western colors by not reporting much of anything, and that certainly not critical of western manipulation or involvement. 

We saw the tactic of collecting dead bodies and skeletons used in Rwanda by the Pentagon-s agents of teh Rwandan Patriotic Front, and in Darfur and South Sudan, where journalist Nicholas Kristof produced some dead shriveled bodies from some desert somewhere and claimed these were from the New York Times'  Secret Genocide Archives. The atrocities were committed, we are told, by President Omar al-Bashir and the government of Sudan. 

However, there is never any mention of US military involvement, mercenaries (Pacific Architects and Engineers, Dyncorp, others) on the ground in Sudan. Dead men tell no tales, or dead women: these dead bodies are as likely dead from US or Israeli backed 'rebels' -- the Justice and Equality Movement or Sudan Liberation Army backed by the US, NATO, Israel and our puppet dictator in Uganda.
Buckingham Museveni002.jpg

Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni greets the entourage of foreign mercenaries Tony Buckingham and others as part of the Heritage Oil & Gas / Sandline International meetings to secure oil concessions in the bloody Semliki basin bordering eastern Congo and northern Uganda: both sites of legitimate genocides. 

The double-standards and outright lies can be seen quickly, if one knows there are deeper truths, by examining propaganda produced by the International Crisis Group, or such propaganda tracts as Smith College English teacher Eric Reeves' A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments  in the Darfur Genocide  -- where there is not one reference to Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni and his Pentagon assisted backing of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), in South Sudan, and Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), in Darfur, in all of the 386 pages.

Western mercenaries that have been deeply involved, and remain so, in some of the world's bloodiest conflicts, in coup d'etats, in massacres and other atrocities, include British mercenary Tony Buckingham -- whose mercenary past is legendary -- founder of Heritage Oil & Gas, a petroleum company linked by Buckingham to mercenary firms Branch Energy and Sandline International. Buckingham was also a partner in the infamous Executive Outcomes, with former British SAS soldier-of-misfortune Tim Spicer -- the recipient of massive Pentagon contracts in Iraq. Heritage director General Sir Michael Wilkes retired from the British Army in 1995 and is a former Middle East adviser to the British government and a member of the Army Board. Wilkes commanded Britain's Special Air Services (SAS) regiment and was director of Special Forces. Heritage Oil has exploited opportunities in Mali, Uganda, Republic of Congo, Oman and Iraq.
Heritage Iraq003.jpg
Heritage Oil & Gas map of operations in Iraq.



In short, almost everything in the western press on the crises in Libya is slanted by some faction, or interest, or it is tainted by western arrogance, or by anti-imperialist ideology (of 'solidarity'), even in the case of the alternative media. There is very little accurate reporting of any kind (but some good work linked or cited herein).

This report is just another incomplete picture of an incomplete puzzle -- but it seeks to penetrate through and expose the ongoing western media campaign for what it is: a psychological operation against the masses of earth's people who have not and do not benefit from the nasty policies and actions implemented to serve a very small and elite group of people. 

People wishing to support the legitimate grievances and actions for freedom and truth in Libya should challenge the western terrorist apparatus out of Washington, DC, Tel Aviv, Brussels, London and Ottawa.   

Prayers for the true innocent civilians in Libya, and across the region. 


keith harmon snow traveled to Tripoli, Libya in 2009 and stayed about 3 days while attending the "2009 International Conference of the Green Book supporters" as a member of the US Delegation invited by former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney (D-GA).** Maps are from a petroleum industry map of all Africa produced in 1996: much has changed since then, only for the worse, in terms of oil and gas expansions.

Keith Harmon Snow is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Keith Harmon Snow

Posted by Unknown at 3:53 PM 1 comments
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)