DOC-FILM: THOMAS SANKARA, A GREAT AFRICAN ANTI-IMPERIALIST SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY

How imperialist ‘aid’ blocks development in Africa

[source]

Printed below is an excerpt from We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolutions, a collection of speeches by Thomas Sankara, leader of the Burkina Faso revolution. The French edition is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for April. A popular uprising on Aug. 4, 1983, in the former French colony in West Africa, then called Upper Volta, brought to power a revolutionary government that carried out an ambitious program of land reform, reforestation to stop the advance of the desert and to counter famine, broad measures aimed at women’s emancipation, and a fight against imperialist oppression and capitalist exploitation. Sankara was assassinated on Oct. 5, 1987, during a military coup that destroyed the revolutionary government. The piece below is from a speech by Sankara to the UN General Assembly on Oct. 4, 1984. Copyright © 2002 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY THOMAS SANKARA

We represented a wondrous condensation, the epitome of all the calamities that have ever befallen the so-called developing countries. The example of foreign aid, presented as a panacea and often heralded without rhyme or reason, bears eloquent witness to this fact. Very few countries have been inundated like mine with all kinds of aid. Theoretically, this aid is supposed to work in the interests of our development. In the case of what was formerly Upper Volta, one searches in vain for a sign of anything having to do with development. The men in power, either out of naiveté or class selfishness, could not or would not take control of this influx from abroad, understand its significance, or raise demands in the interests of our people.

In his book, Le Sahel demain [The Sahel of tomorrow], Jacques Giri, with a good deal of common sense, analyzes a table published in 1983 by the Sahel Club, and draws the conclusion that because of its nature and the mechanisms in place, aid to the Sahel helps only with bare survival. Thirty percent of this aid, he stresses, serves simply to keep the Sahel alive. According to Jacques Giri, the only goal of this foreign aid is to continue developing nonproductive sectors, saddling our meager budgets with unbearably heavy expenditures, disorganizing our countryside, widening our balance of trade deficit, and accelerating our indebtedness.

Just a few images to describe the former Upper Volta: 7 million inhabitants, with over 6 million peasants; an infant mortality rate estimated at 180 per 1,000; an average life expectancy limited to 40 years; an illiteracy rate of up to 98 percent, if we define as literate anyone who can read, write, and speak a language; 1 doctor for 50,000 inhabitants; 16 percent of school-age youth attending school; and, finally, a per capita Gross Domestic Product of 53,356 CFA francs, or barely more than 100 U.S. dollars.

The diagnosis was clearly somber. The root of the disease was political. The treatment could only be political.

Of course, we encourage aid that aids us in doing away with aid. But in general, welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs.

We chose to risk new paths to achieve greater well-being. We chose to apply new techniques. We chose to look for forms of organization better suited to our civilization, flatly and definitively rejecting all forms of outside diktats, in order to lay the foundations for achieving a level of dignity equal to our ambitions. Refusing to accept a state of survival, easing the pressures, liberating our countryside from medieval stagnation or even regression, democratizing our society, opening minds to a world of collective responsibility in order to dare to invent the future. Shattering the administrative apparatus, then rebuilding it with a new kind of government employee, immersing our army in the people through productive labor and reminding it constantly that without patriotic political education, a soldier is only a potential criminal. Such is our political program.

On the level of economic management, we’re learning to live modestly, to accept and impose austerity on ourselves in order to be able to carry out ambitious projects. Thanks to the example of the National Solidarity Fund, which is financed by voluntary contributions, we’re already beginning to find answers to the harsh questions posed by the drought. We have supported and applied the Alma Ata principles by widening the range of primary health-care services. We’ve adopted the GOBI FFF Strategy recommended by UNICEF as our own, making it government policy.1

Through the United Nations Sahel Office (UNSO), we believe the UN should enable the countries affected by the drought to set up a medium- and long-term plan to achieve food self-sufficiency.

To prepare for the twenty-first century, we have launched a huge campaign to educate and train our children in a new kind of school, financed by the creation of a special “Teach our children” raffle. Through the salutary action of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, we have launched a vast program to build public housing (500 units in three months), roads, small reservoirs, and so on. Our economic aspiration is to create a situation where every Burkinabè can at least use his brain and hands to invent and create enough to ensure him two meals a day and drinking water.

We swear, we proclaim, that from now on nothing in Burkina Faso will be done without the participation of the Burkinabè. Nothing that we have not first decided and worked out ourselves. There will be no further assaults on our sense of decency and our dignity.

1. The Alma Ata principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) emphasized proper nutrition, safe water, sanitation systems, maternal and child health care, immunization, and a reserve of basic medicine. UNICEF’s GOBI FFF Strategy, focused on women and children, includes treating diarrhea-caused dehydration with an inexpensive solution of clean water, glucose, and salts; breastfeeding; immunization against six major communicable diseases; and education.

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Pro-Gaddafi movement set up in Burkina

APA – Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) A support movement for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (MSK) has recently been created in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to call African youth to stand by Colonel Gaddafi against “the plot by France and the UK,” the leader of the movement Eric Zabsonre tells APA here.

The chairman of the movement, Eric Zabsonre, feels the Libyan Guide is facing a “Franco-British conspiracy’ and President Nicolas Sarkozy (France) is attempting to “lay a hand on Libyan oil.”

The insurgency, according to Zabsonre, is only a military rebellion instigated in Benghazi by French President Sarkozy, in cooperation with the Libyan ambassador to France.

With such serious suspicions, Zabsonre urges Burkinabe and African youths "to denounce the French plot and western imperialism.”

The MSK has announced a peaceful demonstration to be staged at a date to be specified and a press conference of its leader.

Zabsonre dded he was holding discussions with other people on the strategy to use for a better support for the Libyan Guide.

France, which has recognized the government set up by the rebels in Benghazi, launched the first wave of UN-sponsored air strikes, to protect civilians and obtain a ceasefire from Gaddafi.

The revolution led by the late President of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, has earned the Libyan leader the sympathy of the Burkinabe people.

In this country, Gaddafi has “friends” gathered in an officially recognized association, which did not prevent him from expelling many Burkinabe nationals in 2004 and 2010.

As part of the current crisis, some 344 other Burkinabe citizens stripped of their goods by Libyans, on Sunday returned to Ouagadougou.

NICARAGUA AND ITS REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH STAND WITH GHADAFI's LIBYA

Sandinistas oppose Libya bombing

President Daniel Ortega has sent Fr. Miguel D'Escoto to New York to coordinate the efforts of Nicaragua and other countries to stop attacks on Libya and find a peaceful solution to the conflict there. D'Escoto was Foreign Minister during the first Sandinista government and served as President of the UN General Assembly during its 2008-2009 session. D'Escoto denounced the US-led military operation against Libya saying that the UN "has intentionally been converted into a castrated organization by the imperialists so that it can't block their imperial dreams." He called the international body, "An arm of death in the hands of the imperialists."

Hundreds of Sandinista supporters, mostly Young Sandinistas, members of the Nicaraguan Committee in Solidarity with Libya, marched three times in five days past the Libyan embassy to the office of the UN Development Program (UNDP). D'Escoto said the marches were "in solidarity with the Libyan people before the imperialistic military aggression guaranteed by the UN." Demonstrators chanted "No to war; yes to peace," disrupting traffic, but the demonstrations were otherwise without incident. Marchers accused the US, France and England of using the UN as an "instrument" to start an "unjust war totally violating international law, the right to life, and contrary to self-determination of the people." They also accused the press of ferociously attacking Libya, its people and its leader in the service of "the centers of power" to justify foreign military aggression. Janina Guerrero, president of the Nicaraguan Association for the Promotion of Peace, said that an international peace commission should be formed headed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The right-wing newspaper, La Prensa, was dismissive of the demonstrators, saying they were there on the orders of the government and they didn't even know who Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was. Earlier in the week, President Daniel Ortega sharply criticized US President Barack Obama saying that at the same time he was touring Latin America offering cooperation and interchange, he was ordering the bombing of Libya. He called Gadaffi a "brother in the good times and the bad." He called the situation in Libya "tragic" and appealed for a peaceful resolution. (La Prensa, Mar. 22, 24, 25; Radio La Primerisima, Mar.22, 24, 26; El Nuevo Diario, Mar. 26)

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Libya Taps Nicaraguan as Its Envoy at the U.N.

[source]

A former Nicaraguan foreign minister who once called President Ronald Reagan “the butcher of my people” has been appointed to represent Libya at the United Nations after its delegate was denied a visa, the Nicaraguan government said on Wednesday.

Nicaragua said the former minister, Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, 78, an outspoken critic of the United States and a Catholic priest, would replace the Libyan diplomat Ali Abdussalam Treki, who had been unable to obtain a visa to enter the United States.

Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgam, defected in late February after denouncing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi during a Security Council meeting during which he pleaded for international help to save Libya from bloodshed.

The Nicaraguan government of President Daniel Ortega, a leftist who has frequently sparred with the United States and has forged close ties with Colonel Qaddafi, said it sent a letter to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on Tuesday to inform him of the appointment. Before he defected, Libya’s foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, also notified Mr. Ban. But the United Nations said on Wednesday that it had not received official notice.

In its letter, the Nicaraguan government said that Mr. D’Escoto would “support the Libyan brothers in their battle to ensure respect for sovereignty and self-determination — both of which are being violated by the powerful, who once again threaten the independence and peace of the people.”

But Susan E. Rice, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said Mr. D’Escoto was not an American citizen — even though he was born in Los Angeles — and was in the country on a tourist visa, which did not permit him to act as the representative of a foreign government. She said he would need to leave the country and apply for a different visa if he were to take up the post.

“I do think it’s curious,” she said, “that somebody who represents seemingly nobody is holding a press conference in a U.N. facility. If he reports to be or acts like a representative of a foreign government on a tourist visa he will soon find his visa status revoked.” Mr. D’Escoto has scheduled his first news conference for Thursday.

A former president of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. D’Escoto was foreign minister under Mr. Ortega from 1979 to 1990. His tenure included the period when the American-financed contra rebels tried to overthrow Mr. Ortega’s Sandinista government.

The unlikely alliance between Libya and Nicaragua can be traced in part to a kinship between Mr. Ortega and Colonel Qaddafi, diplomats said. Mr. Ortega has said that he sought the Libyan leader’s help in financing his presidential campaigns.

As president of the General Assembly, Mr. D’Escoto did not hold back from making oblique critiques of Washington. In his inaugural speech as president in June 2008, he said that United Nations members had to unite against “acts of aggression, such as those occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

In a radio interview in June 2004 after the death of Mr. Reagan, Mr. D’Escoto called the former president a “liar” and “international outlaw” and accused him of being responsible for the deaths of 50,000 Nicaraguans. “I pray that God in his infinite mercy and goodness forgive him for having been the butcher of my people,” he said.

The son of a Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States, Mr. D’Escoto has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Some United Nations diplomats said he was unlikely to help overcome Libya’s status as a pariah. In his previous role at the United Nations, they said, he had shown himself to be viscerally anti-American. Others said he had tamed his anti-Americanism.

UGANDAN PRES ON GHADAFI's POSITIVES

[He also mentions the negatives before hand in the article which can be read HERE ]

Gadhafi is a nationalist: Gadhafi has conducted an independent foreign policy and, of course, also independent internal policies. I am not able to understand the position of Western countries, which appear to resent independent-minded leaders and seem to prefer puppets. Puppets are not good for any country. Most of the countries that have transitioned from Third World to First World status since 1945 have had independent-minded leaders: South Korea (Park Chung-hee), Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew), China People's Republic (Mao Tse Tung, Chou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Marshal Yang Shangkun, Li Peng, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao), Malaysia (Dr. Mahthir Mohamad), Brazil (Luis Inacio Lula da Silva), Iran (the Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei), etc. Between World War I and World War II, the Soviet Union transitioned into an industrial country, propelled by the dictatorial but independent-minded Joseph Stalin. In Africa, we have also benefited from a number of independent-minded leaders: Colonel Nasser of Egypt, Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania, Samora Machel of Mozambique, and others. That is how southern Africa was liberated. That is how we got rid of Idi Amin. The stopping of genocide in Rwanda and the overthrow of Mobutu Sese-Seko in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were as a result of efforts of independent-minded African leaders.

Gadhafi, whatever his faults, is a true nationalist. I prefer nationalists to puppets of foreign interests. Where have the puppets caused the transformation of countries? I need some assistance with information on this from those who are familiar with puppetry.

By contrast, the independent-minded Gadhafi had some positive contributions to Libya, I believe, as well as Africa and the Third World. Take just one example: At the time we were fighting the criminal dictatorships here in Uganda, we had a problem arising of a complication caused by our failure to capture enough guns at Kabamba on Feb. 6, 1981. Gadhafi gave us a small consignment of 96 rifles, 100 anti-tank mines, etc., that was very useful. He did not consult Washington or Moscow before he did this. This was good for Libya, for Africa, and for the Middle East. We should also remember as part of that independent-mindedness the fact that he expelled British and American military bases from Libya.

He raised the price of oil: Before Gadhafi came to power in 1969, a barrel of oil was 40 American cents. He launched a campaign to withhold Arab oil unless the West paid more for it. I think the price went up to $20 per barrel. When the Arab-Israel war of 1973 broke out, the barrel of oil went up to $40. I am, therefore, surprised to hear that many oil producers in the world, including the Gulf countries, do not appreciate the historical role played by Gadhafi on this issue. The huge wealth many of these oil producers are enjoying was, at least in part, due to Gadhafi's efforts. The Western countries have continued to develop in spite of paying more for oil. It therefore means that the pre-Gadhafi oil situation was characterized by super exploitation of oil producing countries by the Western countries.

Gadhafi built Libya: I have never taken the time to investigate socio-economic conditions within Libya. When I was last there, I could see good roads, even from the air. From the TV pictures, you can even see the rebels zooming up and down in pick-up trucks on very good roads accompanied by Western journalists. Who built these good roads? Who built the oil refineries in Brega and those other places where the fighting has been taking place recently? Were these facilities built during the time of the king and his American and British allies, or were they built by Gadhafi?

In Tunisia and Egypt, some youths immolated themselves because they failed to get jobs. Are the Libyans without jobs also? If so, why are there hundreds of thousands of foreign workers? Is Libya's policy of providing so many jobs to Third World workers bad? Are all the children going to school in Libya? Was that the case in the past - before Gadhafi? Is the conflict in Libya economic or purely political? Possibly Libya could have transitioned more if they encouraged the private sector further. However, this is something the Libyans are better placed to judge. As it is, Libya is a middle income country with a GDP of $62 billion.

He's a moderate: Gadhafi is one of the few secular leaders in the Arab world. He does not believe in Islamic fundamentalism, which is why Libyan women have been able to go to school, to join the army, and so forth. This is a positive point on Gadhafi's side.

SON OF AFRICA - OBAMA - SUPPORTS LIBYAN CONTRAS WHO HELP IN THE RE-COLONISATION OF AFRICA

Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret help for Libya rebels

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.

Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter.

Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a necessary legal step before such action can take place but does not mean that it will.

As is common practice for this and all administrations, I am not going to comment on intelligence matters," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. "I will reiterate what the president said yesterday -- no decision has been made about providing arms to the opposition or to any group in Libya."

The CIA declined comment.

News that Obama had given the authorization surfaced as the President and other U.S. and allied officials spoke openly about the possibility of sending arms supplies to Gaddafi's opponents, who are fighting better-equipped government forces.

The United States is part of a coalition, with NATO members and some Arab states, which is conducting air strikes on Libyan government forces under a U.N. mandate aimed at protecting civilians opposing Gaddafi.

Interviews by U.S. networks on Tuesday, Obama said the objective was for Gaddafi to "ultimately step down" from power. He spoke of applying "steady pressure, not only militarily but also through these other means" to force Gaddafi out.

Obama said the U.S. had not ruled out providing military hardware to rebels. "It's fair to say that if we wanted to get weapons into Libya, we probably could. We're looking at all our options at this point," he told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted to reporters that no decision had yet been taken.

U.S. officials monitoring events in Libya say neither Gaddafi's forces nor the rebels, who have asked the West for heavy weapons, now appear able to make decisive gains.

While U.S. and allied airstrikes have seriously damaged Gaddafi's military forces and disrupted his chain of command, officials say, rebel forces remain disorganized and unable to take full advantage of western military support.

SPECIFIC OPERATIONS

People familiar with U.S. intelligence procedures said that Presidential covert action "findings" are normally crafted to provide broad authorization for a range of potential U.S. government actions to support a particular covert objective.

In order for specific operations to be carried out under the provisions of such a broad authorization -- for example the delivery of cash or weapons to anti-Gaddafi forces -- the White House also would have to give additional "permission" allowing such activities to proceed.

Former officials say these follow-up authorizations are known in the intelligence world as "'Mother may I' findings."

In 2009 Obama gave a similar authorization for the expansion of covert U.S. counter-terrorism actions by the CIA in Yemen. The White House does not normally confirm such orders have been issued.

Because U.S. and allied intelligence agencies still have many questions about the identities and leadership of anti-Gaddafi forces, any covert U.S. activities are likely to proceed cautiously until more information about the rebels can be collected and analyzed, officials said.

"The whole issue on (providing rebels with) training and equipment requires knowing who the rebels are," said Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA Middle East expert who has advised the Obama White House.

Riedel said that helping the rebels to organize themselves and training them how use weapons effectively would be more urgent then shipping them arms.

ARMS EMBARGO

Sending in weapons would arguably violate an arms embargo on Libya by the U.N. Security Council imposed on February 26, although British, U.S. and French officials have suggested there may be a loophole.

Getting a waiver would require the agreement of all 15 council members, which is unlikely at this stage. Diplomats say any countries that decided to arm the rebels would be unlikely to seek formal council approval.

An article in early March on the website of the Voice of America, the U.S. government's broadcasting service, speculated on possible secret operations in Libya and defined a covert action as "any U.S. government effort to change the economic, military, or political situation overseas in a hidden way."

The article, by VOA intelligence correspondent Gary Thomas, said covert action "can encompass many things, including propaganda, covert funding, electoral manipulation, arming and training insurgents, and even encouraging a coup."

U.S. officials also have said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose leaders despise Gaddafi, have indicated a willingness to supply Libyan rebels with weapons.

Members of Congress have expressed anxiety about U.S. government activities in Libya. Some have recalled that weapons provided by the U.S. and Saudis to mujahedeen fighting Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s later ended up in the hands of anti-American militants.

There are fears that the same thing could happen in Libya unless the U.S. is sure who it is dealing with. The chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, said on Wednesday he opposed supplying arms to the Libyan rebels fighting Gaddafi "at this time."

"We need to understand more about the opposition before I would support passing out guns and advanced weapons to them," Rogers said in a statement.

LIBYAN SUPPORTERS OF GHADAFI

DEDICATED TO THE RESISTANT LIBYAN PEOPLE AS THEY FACE EMPIRE CRUISE MISSILES

ALL THIS LIBYA/GHADAFI TALK REMINDS ME OF THIS CASTRO-SADDAM CHAT

Saddam Hussein

The Fighter, the Thinker and the Man
By Amir Iskander
Translated by Hassan Selim
Part II Chapter 7

The role of the party supersedes the technocrats

Having reached this point in the thoughts of Saddam Hussein there are a
number of important questions, some purely theoretical and others more
practical, which must be asked. For instance, can economic growth of the
type referred to lead to the creation of socialism? What guarantee is there
that it will not go the same way as other experiments in the developing
world, also carried out under the banner of socialism, and turn into state
capitalism? Looking back at his ideas about the developmental process
and the way it should be applied in Iraq, what in Saddam Hussein's
opinion is the role of the Iraqi masses? And how is this role represented?

What guarantee is there that it will continue, not only amongst the
masses, but also amongst the leaders themselves, who may be goaded by
success in "battle" imagine that they have won the "war", and
consequently make light of the role of the masses, or ultimately do away
with it altogether?

Saddam Hussein first of all says: "Not all development is a step along the
road to socialism in any country or regime. There has been development
in Europe, America, Japan and other countries, but it has not resulted in
socialism. The activities of the state in these places have been no more
than a form of state capitalism, which is part of the general process of
building capitalism. In such instances, the state with its authority is rather
ensuring that the capitalist system is maintained (1)." But on the other
hand: "Without development, the creation of a flourishing social system
which can serve as a model in this area of which we are part, and which
can increase the people's well being and provide the where-withal to
defend itself and its principles, is unimaginable. Similarly, development
in our country cannot but accurately express the socialist roots of the
system with its related programmes, to which again it is inescapably
linked.

There is therefore a close relationship between this and the principal
guidelines of our party in both social and economic fields (2)."
An important conversation held during the meeting between Saddam
Hussein and Fidel Castro on the morning of December 15th, 1978, which
was also attended by a number of those behind the Cuban revolution,
serves to confirm the above and is reproduced here in part:

CASTRO: You are certainly wise in saying that we should gain time,
because time works in the interests of revolution. Iraq can advance
politically, socially, economically and militarily. The uneducated gained the first victory for the Cuban army, and we are now summoning the
army's middle ranks, and so we are better trained and prepared. They are
more skilled in the use of arms. In the case of Iraq, time is working in
your favour, because you're developing the whole country and rallying
the masses, which they didn't do in Egypt.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: There was no revolutionary party and no one
apart from Abdul Nasser. He was a revolutionary, but in different
circumstances to yours. You made sure of having revolutionaries before
assuming power and he didn't. In Iraq we also made sure we had
revolutionaries before taking control. The party made sacrifices and there
were martyrs and those who suffered prison and torture; but this had to be
done in order to create revolutionaries who knew how to keep the
revolution going and benefit the people. That's why we weren't worried.
Our worry was how to develop our programmes faster, and what methods
we should choose for applying socialism, as well as how, in three years,
we could wipe out the illiteracy affecting a sixth of the population. Now
we have one and a quarter million enrolled in literacy centres.

CASTRO: Despite the difficulties we are optimistic.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: Certainly, otherwise we wouldn't be
revolutionaries. The people work with goodwill, and whatever the
imperialists have gained they will never be able to make an accurate
estimate of the people's strength.

They aren't experts in this field. They only knew how to exploit and carry
out undercover work; but as to how the people are able to act in its own
interest, experience has always shown us that they miscalculate (3).
In this meeting with one of the most important socialist (Marxist) leaders
in the world, the role of revolutionary power, of the revolutionary party,
and of the rallying of the masses was confirmed. An obvious comparison
was also made between the Nasserite experience on the one hand and the
Cuban and Iraqi experience on the other. However, neither Castro nor
Saddam Hussein attributed the reason for the first's disastrous end to the
neglect to create a revolutionary party and rally together the masses.
Instead they merely said that Abdul-Nasser failed to ensure that there
were revolutionaries like himself before he took power, and to form a
revolutionary party after. Saddam Hussein expresses the same ideas
elsewhere:

"So that ideas can be applied and then take root and build tradition, they
must be expressed in a practical form. If they remain in mere book form
any counter operation is made simple, and any person who takes power
into his hands can return the book to the library, as it were, thereby
destroying or weakening any counter influence (4).

Even so, the question still remains. Is it not possible for a party in power
to be so proud of its victories and so conceited about its achievements that it relaxes its muscles, its arteries harden, and the blood in its veins
solidifies? In many instances throughout the world there have been
parties, which, before they assumed power, were ablaze with revolution.
Then no sooner had they gained power than their flames died and their
revolutionary spirit grew cold, becoming nothing more than a set of
archives which the new bureaucrats take out of their drawers to look at
like an old photograph album, or something which is spoken about on
national occasions and official feast days.

That Saddam Hussein is fully aware of this is evident, not only from the
active days of his youth, but also from the long hard struggle he waged
within the party ranks before it took power, and after as its head. He did
not acquire the seat of power by design as, for him, to rule was not an aim
in itself. On the contrary, he asked more than once to be relieved from top
executive positions to retain only his position as an active member within
the party ranks. This, however, he only did after the revolution was
purged of saboteurs on July 30th, 1968, for the first time, although not for
the last. When preparations for the revolution were being made, he told
his colleagues that once they had assumed power he only wanted to be
considered as an ordinary member of the party. Naturally, they refused
his request, which in any case was not viable at the time; but after July
30th, 1968, knowing that the party was assured of full control, he told
President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr following the declaration that his
former wish could now be carried out. But al-Bakr and his fellow leaders
again refused his wish, this time even more decisively, but he continued
to feel the same, even after spending many years as Vice-Chairman of the
Revolution Command Council. From -time to time he still now
experiences similar feelings, but he can no longer escape from his major
responsibility towards his people and the countries of the world as leader
of the country.

Indeed, this true party member is not forgotten, nor does he forget his
party, for an instant. As far as he is concerned, the state is the instrument
by which to administer the revolution, and it is therefore no surprise that
he should constantly urge his colleagues to transfer the party traditions to
the state:

"Colleagues, in your task of leading the country you would do well to
seek guidance from the party traditions.

They should provide a firm base for your daily work and serve a practical
use within the advanced state as need wants. Do not attempt to borrow the
state's traditions and substitute them for those of the party, because there
is a great qualitative difference between the political and systematic
construction of the state and that of the party, even though the state itself
is the party's. If there were no difference between the power of the state
and the party, the party would become the party of power instead of the power remaining the power of the party. In this case, we would lose the
quality we have of fighting to affect the good of society by a qualitative
change for the better.

Alternatively, we would be seriously weakened, and the party would
become a conventional tool of the state. The state itself would no longer
remain a non-static entity always led by the party in the interests of
progress (5)."

Saddam Hussein also recognizes that criticism and self-criticism are vital,
and asserts to his party colleagues "we must not stray from the open
criticism to be found in democracies "(6). But does criticism for pure
criticism's sake mean that the leadership is democratic?
Indeed not. " At the same time, we must not allow mistaken ideas to go
by without being pointed out and resolutely dealt with. This is because
there are renegades hidden amongst us, or within Iraqi society and the
state organizations, and these remain strong because they are present,
intellectually and psychologically, in each state sector and emerge in
different forms according to circumstances (7)." Beware of renegades is
what he always tells them, not because he suspects that his people will
rule with an iron hand, but because he knows that the enemies of any true
revolution are many, both at home and abroad. He therefore constantly
reminds his colleagues to keep their wits about them and not
automatically assume there will be none. In his view, this requires a firm
supervision of ideas from the top, as well as which the invulnerability of
principles should be strengthened.

"We should not disregard our role in supervising the internal life of both
party and state, just as we should neither ignore to have supervision by
the masses of the state organizations, and even of the small pockets where
reactionary or right-wing elements have no specific hold.

We must work unswervingly to purge those vital positions within the
state organizations where there are influential right-wing elements, and
we must strengthen our control as regards the inviolability of the system
and its principles within the party itself (8).”

Renegades, however, have many guises, the most recent of which they
have borrowed from the need of various developing societies for
technology and modernization. Several revolutions in the third world
have gradually lost their hold and been replaced by bureaucrats and
technocrats. Technology becomes a hidden secret, which the new high
priests keep to themselves and use when required. Under the cover of
technical accounts of the applications of modern technology, the revolutionaries, because of their lack of knowledge, were always spreading the spurious secrets of
the high priesthood, thus providing openings for counter-revolution. However, Saddam Hussein realizes that there are those with good intentions and those with bad. "Many technicians, including Baathists, often find themselves dealing with the issue at stake from a technical point of view, and they forget the link between technical treatment and the general train of thought of the revolution, which is the way to build a new society (9)."

He does not hesitate to clearly state that which, in another time or place,
would surely lead to the failure of any leader's experiments: "Here we
say, and responsibly so, that you must not deal with major economic and
technical questions without consulting the technical experts. But do not
leave the task of economic leadership to them. Give them no opportunity
to assume the role of leader. Instead, they must always work under the
direction and leadership of the revolution, which has unlimited capacity
and expert technical knowledge. It knows the revolution, understands the
methods by which to alter society in general, and which direction the
change should take, and uses every economic movement to serve itself
and its aims (10)."

One might wonder, for instance, had matters been left to the
conventionally minded technical experts when battle was being prepared
to nationalize oil, would Iraq have been able to achieve its economic
independence and begin to apply its ambitious projects for development?
Technical experts have their own religion and revolutionaries have
another. In the majority of cases, the revolutionaries are closer to God's
heart for no other reason than that they always listen to the voice of the
people!


NOTES
1) Saddam Hussein, Hawla Iqamat al-Ishtirakiyya.
2) Ibid.
3) From the meeting between Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro in
Havana, December 1978.
4) Saddam Hussein, Unqulu Taqalid al-Hizb...
5) Ibid.
6) Ibid.
7) Ibid.
8) Ibid.
9) Ibid.
10) Ibid.

MUMIA ABU JAMAL ON LIBYA

RAKIM TURNS HIS GUN AGAINST THE YANKEE GENERAL WHEN SENT TO WAR AGAINST OUR PEOPLES

# … let’s see who reigns supreme

Something like Monopoly: a government scheme

Go to the Army, be all you can be

Another dead soldier? Hell no, not me

So I start letting off ammunition in every direction

Allah is my only protection

But wait a minute, Saddam Hussein prays the same

and this is Asia, from where I came

I’m on the wrong side, so change the target

Shooting at the general; and where’s the sergeant? #

Casualties of war!

Casualties of war; as I approach the barricade

Where’s the enemy? who do I invade?

Bullets of teflon, bulletproof vest rip

Tear ya outta ya frame with a bag full of clips

Cause I got a family that waits for my return

To get back home is my main concern

I’ma get back to new york in one piece

But I’m bent in the sand that is hot as the city streets

Sky lights up like fireworks blind me

Bullets, whistlin over my head remind me...

President bush said attack

Flashback to nam, I might not make it back

Missile hits the area, screams wake me up

From a war of dreams, heat up the m-16

Basic training, trained for torture

Take no prisoners, and I just caught ya

Addicted to murder, send more bodybags

They can’t identify em, leave the nametags

I get a rush when I see blood, dead bodies on the floor

Casualties of war! (4x)

Day divides the night and night divides the day

It’s all hard work and no play

More than combat, it’s far beyond that

Cause I got a kill or be killed kind of attack

Area’s mapped out, there’ll be no, stratego

Me and my platoon make a boom wherever we go

But what are we here for? who’s on the other side of the wall?

Somebody give the president a call

But I hear warfare scream through the air

Back to the battlegrounds, it’s war they declare

A desert storm: let’s see who reigns supreme

Something like monopoly: a government scheme

Go to the army, be all you can be

Another dead soldier? hell no, not me

So I start letting off ammunition in every direction

Allah is my only protection

But wait a minute, saddam hussein prays the same

And this is asia, from where I came

I’m on the wrong side, so change the target

Shooting at the general; and where’s the sergeant?

Blame it on john hardy hawkins for bringing me to america

Now it’s mass hysteria

I get a rush when I see blood, dead bodies on the floor

Casualties of war! (4x)

The war is over, for now at least

Just because they lost it don’t mean it’s peace

It’s a long way home, it’s a lot to think about

Whole generation, left in doubt

Innocent families killed in the midst

It’ll be more dead people after this

So I’m glad to be alive and walkin

Half of my platoon came home in coffins

Except the general, buried in the storm

In bits and pieces no need to look for em

I played it slick and got away with it

Rigged it up so they would think they did it

Now I’m home on reserves and you can bet

When they call, I’m going awol

Cause it ain’t no way I’m going back to war

When I don’t know who or what I’m fighting for

So I wait for terrorists to attack

Every time a truck backfires I fire back

I look for shelter when a plane is over me

Remember pearl harbor? new york could be over, g

Kamikaze, strapped with bombs

No peace in the east, they want revenge for saddam

Did I hear gunshots, or thunder?

No time to wonder, somebody’s going under

Put on my fatigues and my camoflouge

Take control, cause I’m in charge

When I snapped out of it, it was blood, dead bodies on the floor

Casualties of war! (4x)

FRENCH HAND IN LIBYAN TURMOIL

French plans to topple Gaddafi on track since last November

by Franco Bechis

[source]

According to right-wing Italian journalist Franco Bechis, plans to spark the Benghazi rebellion were initiated by French intelligence services in November 2010. As Miguel Martinez from the progressive ComeDonChisciotte website observes, these revelations which have the blessing of the Italian secret services should be interpreted as the sign of existing rivalries within the European capitalist camp.

Voltaire Network wishes to point out that Paris promptly paired up with London in its scheme to overthrow Colonel Khadafi (Franco-British expeditionary force). This plan was recalibrated in the context of the Arab revolutions and taken over by Washington, which imposed its own objectives (counter-revolution in the Arab world and landing AfriCom on the Black continent). Therefore, the current coalition arises from a diversity of ambitions, which accounts for its internal contradictions. The timeline of events which set the stage for the military intervention against Libya is presented below.

October 6, 2011

Nouri Mesmari turned himself over to the French secret service and, according to the Italians, he masterminded the revolution against Gaddafi. The document was leaked to Italian newspaper Libero.

In the documents, the French secret services refer to Mesmari as ‘The Libyan Wikileak’ because he gave them all the inside information about the regime as well as an account of who’s who in Libya and who they should or should not contact.

With all the inside information, the Italians claim that by mid-January the French had paved the way for the beginning of the revolution against Gaddafi.

October 20, 2010

Former Gaddafi cohort, Nouri Massoud El-Mesmari, broke ranks on 20 October 2010. He now lives under the protection of French secret services.

Nouri Masmari boarded a Libyan Arab plane headed for Tunis accompanied by all his family. The day after, they were en route to France, claiming that he travelled to Paris due to health reasons. He stayed at the Concorde Lafayette Hotel.

In Paris he never met any doctors. In the following days he had several top secret meetings with high secret service French agents and other top government functionaries close to Nicolas Sarkozy.

November 16, 2010

A long caravan of official cars is parked in front of the hotel Concorde Lafayette whilst in the Mesmari suite an important meeting is taking place. It is a long meeting.

November 18, 2010

A French ‘commercial’ delegation leaves for Benghazi. In the delegation there are officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and representitives from Cam Cereals, France Export Cereals, Cargill, Glencore, France Agrimer, Soufflet, Louis Dreyfous, and Comagra. Among the delegation, posing as government officials, there are French secret service agents and military staff. Their ‘business’ was meeting army officers fingered by Mesmari as being willing to defect from the Libyan army.

While in Benghazi, contact is made with Libyan air defence colonel Abdallah Gehani, who was designated by Nouri Mesmari as an army officer who is ready to collaborate in toppling Muammar Gaddafi. Gehani had good contacts in Tunisia too.

It is a secret operation but the Libyan regime suspects that a double game was being played and that something was about to happen.

November 28, 2010

An international warrant of arrest is issued by the Libyan government for Nouri Mesrami. Foreign Minister Musa Koussa is held responsible for the defection of Mesrami and his passport is withdrawn by the authorities.

December 2, 2010

French authorities announce that they have arrested a collaborator of Gaddafi. Word reaches Gaddafi that Mesrami is under house arrest at the Concorde Lafayette Hotel and is furious that his former friend and colleague asked for political asylum in France, where he still resides to this date. In fact during the first week of the uprising in Libya Mesrami gave interviews to Al Jazeera from a Paris studio.

Muammar Gaddafi sends messages to Nouri Mesrami to win him back saying that he forgives him for what he did and invites him back to Libya.

December 16, 2010

An Gaddafi emissary, Head of state media Abdallah Mansour, is arrested at the Hotel Concorde Lafayette trying to contact Mesrami.

December 23, 2010

A delegation of Libyans arrives in Paris for meetings with Mesrami and other French officials. The Libyans are Ali Ounes Mansouri, Farj Charrant and Fathi Boukhris. These three men will be known later together with Ali Hajj as leaders of the revolution, that started from Benghazi.

The Libyan delegation together with Mesrami and French military and secret service personnel dined at an elegant French restaurant at the Champs Elisée.

December 25 – 31, 2010

Between Christmas and the start of the New Year, the French are in possession of all the details and available inside information; in the compilation of the Maghreb Confidential document, it is stated that “the situation in Benghazi is boiling”.

Januray 22, 2011

Colonel Abdallah Gehani is arrested by the chief of the secret service in Cerenaica, Aoudh Saaiti. Two days later the Colonel is transferred to a prison in Tripoli and accused of treason with the aim of holding back any dissent. But it was too late, the ball was already rolling and the first signs of the revolution were seen a few days after a prominent lawyer, Fathi Tarbel, was arrested. The protest soon turned into clashes and as army officials deserted, the rebels advanced and took over important cities, but so far they have failed to take Tripoli.

The French government led the airstrikes over Libya, was the first European state to recognise the new Libyan National Council and establish diplomatic relations. Since the Italian government was made aware of the documents, it started to take the back seat in the Libya crisis, and Prime Minister Berlusconi said that Italian military planes will not be engaged in airstrikes and that he hopes that it does not end in war.

EXCELLENT ARTICLE ON LIBYA & ARAB TURMOIL FROM A MILITANT ARAB NATIONALIST

NOTE FROM SONS OF MALCOLM:

Although there are some interesting points being made in this article, Sons of Malcolm has to make it clear that we do not agree with such statements depicting all Jews as a problem (but of course Sons of Malcolm will never bend from militant anti-zionism and anti-imperialism):

The sentence and sentiment on Jews that Sons of Malcolm disagrees with and has no association with:

"The US State Dept and its Jewish cadres have been agitating the Egyptian youth movement since 2008 according to many references published on the internet. So this is something the US has been working on. Not just exploited after the fact, but guided. True the millions didn’t take to the street for the love of America, but the millions don’t have any clear direction so the youth who have taken classes with America’s State Dept. Jews are giving them guidance"

Arab Revolt or a Poisoned Banquet?

Muhammad Abu Nasr

Free Arab Voice

More and more it looks like the US is really trying to change the Arab region. The US knows that the masses there hate the corrupt dictatorial regimes, so if the US can guide the replacement of those regimes with regimes that believe in democratic procedures and are willing to sit and listen to the wise western standards of democracy, then what will happen is that the Arab World will have a whole new set of regimes that do respond to a lot of local issues, but insist on following “legality” and the “rule of law” as in international law and internationally recognized peace treaties like Camp David, Oslo, Wadi Arabah, Wye River, etc.

Then revolutionaries will find that it would be harder to mobilize people because they would have to start from square one again convincing people that the new regimes are really not that much better from the ones they replaced. Even though they will know how to say ‘we feel your pain’ and institute programs and listen to the problems.

Now how long will it take for that to be exposed?!

Right now the Egyptian youth who were on the streets seem quite discontented with what’s happening in Egypt, with the military rulers and their petty amended constitution. But somehow the momentum of the movement seems lost —-

or maybe al-Jazeera has been told not to cover the movement against the Supreme Military Council.

Syria and Libya: A Dangerous Turn

Things have taken a big and dangerous turn with Libya and Syria. Now we’ re not talking about passive demos against pro-western corrupt dictators, but about armed uprisings clearly aimed at installing pro-American regimes.

Tunis and Egypt were one thing. But now we’ve got an armed uprising in Libya, a country that was at least to some extent anti-imperialist, and independent. Today we’ve got gunmen shooting people in Syria, again another dubious uprising against a “dictatorship” that just happens to be anti-imperialist.

(Why wasn’t it the reverse? Why were there no arms when the Egyptians and Tunisians were confronting pro-western regimes, but the arms appear when the ‘democrats’ are confronting the not-pro-western regimes?)

What Kind of Change is the Arab World Experiencing?

And here’s another analogy. An analogy doesn’t prove anything, but it might give food for thought. The west always backs non-political trade unions (TUs). The imperialist west is supposedly raping the whole third world to get super profits but they actually promote trade unions as long as those TUs talk wages, work hours, work conditions, but not national liberation, anti-Zionism, etc.

So isn’t that what we’re getting now? Demos against the regimes that avoid the key issues of imperialism and Zionism?

“Let’s solve the regime issue first and then tackle the Zionism and imperialism issue later.” How much can you really decouple them?

Also, if the new, democratic regimes want to follow rule of law and procedures and all that, they will not be inclined to tear up Wadi Araba and Camp David. There might be a debate in a democratic parliament, but then what about Egypt’s (or Jordan’s) responsibilities? they will say. Egypt (or Jordan) has commitments. What happens to the country’s credibility if you start tearing up treaties?

It’s doubtful that open parliamentary debate will lead to truly radical choices. I don’t know why that doesn’t seem to happen, but somehow it doesn’t seem to. Politicians don’t want responsibility for risky decisions.

The whole thing just looks very suspicious: Democracy, but only on things that don’t really matter.

“You mean employment doesn’t matter? You mean poverty doesn’t matter?” Well, they do of course, but how will democracy give young people jobs? It can’t fix the economy. Can it even nationalize things? That’s trampling on somebody’s property protected by the rule of law.

To Divide is To Conquer

Another thing, the Americans don’t have to win in order to win. That is, do they have to kick al-Qadhdhafi out of power? No, if they push him out of eastern Libya they’ve partitioned Libya and the country will descend into chronic instability, and since the Zionists don’t want any half-way strong states around them, then this controlled chaos suits them and the USA just fine.

Syria too. Maybe they can’t get Asad out, but if they can get Syrian security forces to shoot a few demonstrators, they can keep the Syrian regime preoccupied with fighting a chronic insurgency for years. Or they hope to.

I don’t think they’d want to destabilize Jordan since Jordan is a friend. But it really would be worth their while to divert all the political activists in Jordan to focusing only on domestic matters because they have been led to believe that US won’t let a revolution happen if they raise imperialist and Zionist issues.

But when will that happen? When will the US and “Israel” allow those things to be raised? When will that be possible?

An American Role in the Arab Revolt?

The US State Dept and its Jewish cadres have been agitating the Egyptian youth movement since 2008 according to many references published on the internet. So this is something the US has been working on. Not just exploited after the fact, but guided. True the millions didn’t take to the street for the love of America, but the millions don’t have any clear direction so the youth who have taken classes with America’s State Dept. Jews are giving them guidance. And if there’s no leadership that actually does raise the international issues, then those won’t be raised by the masses spontaneously.

And if the youth in Jordan are deliberately avoiding these big issues as it may seem, and if they are going to limit their activity to that which the US can accept, then what good is this activity?

First, any compass not pointing to the Zio-imperialists is broken.

Second, nowadays the US media are full of reports of “Syria shooting at demonstrators all over the country.” Or to use US propaganda-speak “Bashshar is killing his own people.” So far there’s no huge campaign against Syria – probably because Obama is trying to keep a low US profile in all this. Still, it’s obvious that Syria is coming under intense pressure from these same forces.

So what do the events reveal so far?

Here’s the picture:

1. ‘people power’ has won in Egypt and Tunis and any change that would mean anything significant is now pretty much blocked or put on a track of “under discussion” until forever. Meanwhile the military that really rules both ‘people power’ countries are helping the US conquer Libya.

2. A ‘people power’-style uprising in al-Bahrayn – be it pro-Irani or not – has been put down and there’s no noise from the media about any need for international intervention.

3. Armed violent uprisings in the name of ‘people power’ have erupted in Libya and Syria. Both of those clearly have covert western/Zionist support and obviously massive overt support in Libya.

Now draw a line under that and see what the total is. We get zero for actual reversal of the reality of subjugation to imperialism/zionism. In fact we see that subjugation to imperialism/Zionism has increased. In Egypt the referendum on meaningless constitutional amendments passed with 70 percent of the vote. In the US that would be a landslide victory. A victory for what? for saying that ‘ok, this is as far as the revolution goes.’ People may continue to assemble in Maydan at-Tahrir but at this point all the change will be within the legal system, hence it will not have any meaning as pertains to imperialism and Zionism.

Economic Concerns Are Worthless Without Addressing Imperialism

In many an Arab state, more and more the ‘people power’ youth agitation looks like what some of those “Marxist fundamentalists” do in the Third World. They look at Third World countries, ignore imperialism and think and act in terms of organizing the workers, protesting sweat shop work conditions, demanding vacation for pregnant women or other social welfare stuff (the kind of stuff Marx may have done in the 1840s) - none of which will alter the fundamental issue of Zio-imperialist domination in this age of financial imperialism. This trade union, economist approach has been a feature of those types of leftists for a long time, in fact. And it’s never done any good.

In fact, that type of work for social welfare for the workers is more agreeable to transnational companies than it is to local capitalists, so regardless of the intentions of these reformers all they manage to do is focus negative attention on national capital while letting imperialism off the hook.

More and more it seems that these people-power revolutionary movements are the same as those supporting “economist” and “trade union” approaches to the struggle exactly. At best you’ll get more freedom to let off steam but the situation won’t be any different in the key relations. In fact there will be closer and tighter integration with imperialism.

It will all be ‘rule of law’ not ‘rule of individual men.’ Get rid of dictators. Prosecute corrupt officials. International tribunal for Mubarak, for al-Qadhdhafi, for Bashshar al-Asad, and at what point do all the people who advocate armed resistance struggle become “international criminal terrorists”? Egypt and Jordan officially recognize “Israel” which can issue legal warrants to arrest anybody who advocates armed struggle as a hate monger or terrorist or whatever international law cares to call it. Under these liberal-minded, people-power revolutions, where they want to apply universal human rights standards, everything is being done according to high international legal principles and standards, so you will find that resistance is criminalized and it won’t get better from there.

Hence, as said earlier, if Egypt goes the route of ‘rule of law’ and conforming to international norms, there won’t be any room for tearing up ratified peace treaties. Open the border to Ghazza? Well bring the case to the world court. That’s the proper legal way. And then even if you get a ruling to open the border, it will require Egypt to keep out terrorists and weapons and anything that could be used as weapons because this is all an international norm.

Right now the Egyptian regime closes the border and puts up walls to please the US and the Zionists. Under people-power, it will have to commit itself to close the border and inspect goods in order to be a ‘normal’ democratic country that doesn’t allow terror attacks on other ‘normal’ members of the international community, recognized members of the UN, etc. A regime built on international norms of legality and human rights won’t be able to challenge the ‘right’ of the Zionist entity to exist or to ‘defend itself.’

These people-power revolts are globalism at work. They are destroying national borders and national sovereignty by underlining the idea that there are universal human rights, universal law, universal norms, and all the rest.

Neither Chavez Nor Morales

The Arab regimes are crap, but these people-power revolts may be leading straight to deep integration into the imperial system with all its attitudes and norms.

It’s not the issue of democracy per se, but all the atmosphere of international law and international human rights, etc. Yes, in Latin America several states have seen democratic elections of progressive and anti-imperialist leaders – Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. But these have been occurring in a period when the US was focused on the Arab World, for one thing, and for another, all the democratic campaigns waged by Chavez and Morales and the others are local-national ones, not part of this great ‘democratic wave’ coordinated by Facebook and Twitter and young people who go to take master classes at the feet of Hillary Clinton and Jaren Cohen.

So couldn’t an Arab Chavez arise in Egypt? Well, it would be more difficult because he would come to office bound by all the imperialist imposed treaties like Camp David that are the ‘rule of law.’

National (i.e., independently guided) development is death for these globalist people and that’s why the form that ‘people power’ takes is armed uprising in the independently-run countries – Libya and Syria – while it’s unarmed in Egypt, Tunis, Yemen, al-Bahrayn, where the rulers just fall in line with what fits with the needs of global big capital.

Obviously this picture greatly complicates matters for activists in the Arab World. That’s what America’s Facebook/Twitter ‘people power’ movements are meant to do.

So, this is very, very dangerous stuff. It may well prove to be a poisoned banquet.

FARRAKHAN, ON LIBYA, ONE OF THE GREATEST VOICES ON LIBYA THIS PAST MONTH

Farrakhan defends Gadhafi, pans US role in Libya

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Friday that the United States lacks the moral authority to attack the forces of embattled Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

The 78-year-old leader of the Chicago-based organization received cheers Friday
night from a packed crowd at a civil rights conference at Jackson State University.
Farrakhan said his friend Gadhafi has played the role of a forceful parent in post-colonial Libya.

"When you come out of a colonial past where you have lost the value of your own self-interest, God raises somebody from among you that can instill in you the value of yourself again and that person dictates the path until you have grown into your own self-interest," Farrakhan said of Gadhafi.

The minister did not address Gadhafi's alleged role in the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people in 1988.

Farrakhan gave several reasons why the U.S. lacks the moral authority to intervene in the Libyan conflict, including the deaths of black people at the hands of law enforcement during the Rodney King protests in 1991 and the unhealthy food that the federal government allows into the marketplace.

"The American people are dying, and the Food and Drug Administration is complicit," he said. "Greed is more important than the lives of the American people."

Farrakhan made his remarks at the 6th annual Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Conference.

He talked about the importance of strong family units, conservative outfits for women, healthy food and land ownership. But he also espoused controversial views on some subjects, saying that interracial births pose a threat to the white population and that Jews control the mainstream civil rights movement.

Some Mississippi religious and civil rights leaders previously said it was offensive that Farrakhan was selected to speak at the conference.

Farrakhan criticized President Barack Obama for joining up with the "old colonial masters" of the Western-led forces and expressed skepticism about European countries espousing humanitarian concerns, saying they "give noble motives to their wickedness."

"Do you think they had humanitarian concerns when the British mowed down the Indians in India who were peacefully protesting?" he said. "Where in the hell is humanitarian values in America when you've got over 50 million Americans living in poverty, sick and diseased, with no healthcare?"

He also alleged that Obama had backed down from pushing a Palestinian-Israeli peace accord and banning settlement-building in the West Bank, calling him "the first Jewish president." Obama is a Christian.

"He was selected before he was elected," Farrakhan said. "And the people that selected him were rich, powerful members of the Jewish community."
Local Jewish leaders this week criticized Farrakhan for distorting historical fact in order to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. The Anti-Defamation League said recently that Farrakhan's anti-Semitism is "obsessive, diabolical and unrestrained."

Farrakhan has over the years denied claims of anti-Semitism, arguing his remarks are often taken out of context and that criticism of Jews in any light automatically earns the "anti-Semite" label. The Nation of Islam has espoused black nationalism and self-reliance since it was founded in the 1930s, though in recent years it has included other groups, including Latinos and immigrants.

[in case you missed the great man the first time around on Sons of Malcolm:]

PODCAST: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CATALAN (sPANISH) SISTER WHO LIVES IN LIBYA

LIBYAN CONTRAS ADMIT THEY BANROLLED BY bRITS

Britain gives £1.4 BILLION to their Contras in Libya (while bombing Libya)

[source]

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — A U.S.-based economist appointed finance minister in the Libyan rebels' first attempt at a government admits they have made mistakes, missed opportunities and shown disorganization — but he says they aren't short of cash, and they'll get better at their jobs.

...

He added that many countries have agreed to provide credit backed by the Libyan sovereign fund, and the British government has also agreed to give the rebels access to 1.4 billion dinars ($1.1 billion) that London did not send to Gadhafi.

VIDEO: JUSTICE FOR SMILEY CULTURE EVENT, BRIXTON, SOUTH LONDON

Video streaming by Ustream

DEDICATED TO THIS BROTHER FROM THE EDL, COME JOIN THE DARKSIDE, BRO LOL

TO ALL YOU SELL-OUTS ON LIBYA: "FIGHT THE WAR, F*** THE NORM / NOW I GOT NO PATIENCE, SO SICK OF COMPLACENCE"

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Huh!
Yeah, we're comin' back then with another bombtrack
Think ya know what it's all about
Huh!
Hey yo, so check this out
Yeah!
Know your enemy!
Come on!

Born with insight and a raised fist
A witness to the slit wrist, that's with
As we move into '92
Still in a room without a view
Ya got to know
Ya got to know
That when I say go, go, go
Amp up and amplify
Defy
I'm a brother with a furious mind
Action must be taken
We don't need the key
We'll break in

Something must be done
About vengeance, a badge and a gun
'Cause I'll rip the mike, rip the stage, rip the system
I was born to rage against 'em

Fist in ya face, in the place
And I'll drop the style clearly
Know your enemy...Know your enemy!
Yeah!

Hey yo, and dick with this...uggh!
Word is born
Fight the war, fuck the norm
Now I got no patience
So sick of complacence
With the D the E the F the I the A the N the C the E
Mind of a revolutionary
So clear the lane
The finger to the land of the chains
What? The land of the free?
Whoever told you that is your enemy?

Now something must be done
About vengeance, a badge and a gun
'Cause I'll rip the mike, rip the stage, rip the system
I was born to rage against 'em

Now action must be taken
We don't need the key
We'll break in

I've got no patience now
So sick of complacence now
I've got no patience now
So sick of complacence now
Sick of sick of sick of sick of you
Time has come to pay...
Know your enemy!

Come on!
Yes I know my enemies
They're the teachers who taught me to fight me
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are American dreams (8 times)
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams
All of which are American dreams

ON LIBYA's ANTI-EMPIRE TERRORISM CAPABILITY

Libya's Terrorism Option

[source]

On March 19, military forces from the United States, France and Great Britain began to enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, which called for the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya and authorized the countries involved in enforcing the zone to “take all necessary measures” to protect civilians and “civilian-populated areas under threat of attack.” Obviously, such military operations cannot be imposed against the will of a hostile nation without first removing the country’s ability to interfere with the no-fly zone — and removing this ability to resist requires strikes against military command-and-control centers, surface-to-air missile installations and military airfields. This means that the no-fly zone not only was a defensive measure to protect the rebels — it also required an attack upon the government of Libya.

Certainly, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has no doubt that the U.S. and European military operations against the Libyan military targets are attacks against his regime. He has specifically warned France and the United Kingdom that they would come to regret the intervention. Now, such threats could be construed to mean that should Gadhafi survive, he will seek to cut off the countries’ access to Libyan energy resources in the future. However, given Libya’s past use of terrorist strikes to lash out when attacked by Western powers, Gadhafi’s threats certainly raise the possibility that, desperate and hurting, he will once again return to terrorism as a means to seek retribution for the attacks against his regime. While threats of sanctions and retaliation have tempered Gadhafi’s use of terrorism in recent years, his fear may evaporate if he comes to believe he has nothing to lose.

History of Libyan Reactions

Throughout the early 1980s, the U.S. Navy contested Libya’s claim to the Gulf of Sidra and said the gulf was international water. This resulted in several minor skirmishes, such as the incident in August 1981 when U.S. Navy fighters downed two Libyan aircraft. Perhaps the most costly of these skirmishes for Libya occurred in March 1986, when a U.S. task force sank two Libyan ships and attacked a number of Libyan surface-to-air missile sites that had launched missiles at U.S. warplanes.

The Libyans were enraged by the 1986 incident, but as the incident highlighted, they lacked the means to respond militarily due to the overwhelming superiority of U.S. forces. This prompted the Libyans to employ other means to seek revenge. Gadhafi had long seen himself as the successor to Gamal Abdel Nasser as the leader of Arab nationalism and sought to assert himself in a number of ways. Lacking the population and military of Egypt, or the finances of Saudi Arabia, he began to use terrorism and the support of terrorist groups as a way to undermine his rivals for power in the Arab world. Later, when he had been soundly rejected by the Arab world, he began to turn his attention to Africa, where he employed these same tools. They could also be used against what Gadhafi viewed as imperial powers.

On April 2, 1986, a bomb tore a hole in the side of TWA Flight 840 as it was flying from Rome to Athens. The explosion killed four American passengers and injured several others. The attack was claimed by the Arab Revolutionary Cells but is believed to have been carried out by the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), one of the Marxist terrorist groups heavily sponsored by Libya.

On the evening of April 5, 1986, a bomb detonated in the La Belle disco in Berlin. Two U.S. soldiers and one civilian were killed in the blast and some 200 others were injured. Communications between Tripoli and the Libyan People’s Bureau (its embassy) in East Berlin were intercepted by the United States, which, armed with this smoking gun tying Libya to the La Belle attack, launched a retaliatory attack on Libya the night of April 15, 1986, that included a strike against Gadhafi’s residential compound and military headquarters at Bab Al Azizia, south of Tripoli. The strike narrowly missed killing Gadhafi, who had been warned of the impending attack. The warning was reportedly provided by either a Maltese or Italian politician, depending on which version of the story one hears.

The Libyan government later claimed that the attack killed Gadhafi’s young daughter, but this was pure propaganda. It did, however, anger and humiliate Gadhafi, though he lacked the ability to respond militarily. In the wake of the attack on his compound, Gadhafi feared additional reprisals and began to exercise his terrorist hand far more carefully and in a manner to provide at least some degree of deniability. One way he did this was by using proxy groups to conduct his strikes, such as the ANO and the Japanese Red Army (JRA). It did not take Gadhafi’s forces long to respond. On the very night of the April 15 U.S. attack, U.S. Embassy communications officer William Calkins was shot and critically wounded in Khartoum, Sudan, by a Libyan revolutionary surrogates in Sudan. On April 25, Arthur Pollock, a communicator at the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, was also shot and seriously wounded by an ANO gunman.

In May 1986, the JRA attacked the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, with an improvised mortar that caused little damage, and the JRA conducted similar ineffective attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Madrid in February and April of 1987. In June 1987, JRA operatives attacked the U.S. Embassy in Rome using vehicle-borne improvised explosive device and an improvised mortar. In April 1988, the group attacked the USO club in Naples. JRA bombmaker Yu Kikumura was arrested on the New Jersey Turnpike in April 1988 while en route to New York City to conduct a bombing attack there. The use of ANO and JRA surrogates provided Gadhafi with some plausible deniability for these attacks, but there is little doubt that he was behind them. Then on Dec. 21, 1988, Libyan agents operating in Malta succeeded in placing a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103, which was destroyed in the air over Scotland. All 259 passengers and crew members aboard that flight died, as did 11 residents of Lockerbie, Scotland, the town where the remnants of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet fell. Had the jet exploded over the North Atlantic as intended instead of over Scotland, the evidence that implicated Libya in the attack most likely never would have been found.

But the United States has not been the only target of Libyan terrorism. While the Libyans were busy claiming the Gulf of Sidra during the 1980s, they were also quite involved in propagating a number of coups and civil wars in Africa. One civil war in which they became quite involved was in neighboring Chad. During their military intervention there, the Libyans suffered heavy losses and eventually defeat due to French intervention on the side of the Chadian government. Not having the military might to respond to France militarily, Gadhafi once again chose the veiled terrorist hand. On Sept. 19, 1989, UTA Flight 772 exploded shortly after taking off from N’Djamena, Chad, en route to Paris. All 156 passengers and 14 crew members were killed by the explosion. The French government investigation into the crash found that the aircraft went down as a result of a bombing and that the bomb had been placed aboard the aircraft in Brazzaville, the Republic of the Congo, by Congolese rebels working with the Libyan People’s Bureau there. Six Libyans were tried in absentia and convicted for their part in the attack.

The Current Situation

Today Libya finds itself once again being attacked by an opponent with an overwhelmingly powerful military that Gadhafi’s forces cannot stand up to. While Gadhafi did take responsibility for some of Libya’s past terrorist attacks and publicly renounced terrorism in 2003, this step was a purely pragmatic move on his part. It was not the result of some ideological epiphany that suddenly caused Gadhafi to become a kinder and gentler guy. From the late 1980s to the renunciation of terrorism in 2003, Gadhafi retained the capability to continue using terrorism as a foreign policy tool but simply chose not to. And this capability remains in his tool box.

Unlike his views of past crises, Gadhafi sees the current attacks against him as being far more dangerous to the survival of his regime than the Gulf of Sidra skirmishes or the French military operations in Chad. Gadhafi has always been quite cold and calculating. He has not hesitated to use violence against those who have affronted him, even his own people. Now he is cornered and fearful for his very survival. Because of this, there is a very real possibility that the Libyans will employ terrorism against the members of the coalition now implementing and enforcing the no-fly zone.

Gadhafi has a long history of using diplomatic staff, which the Libyans refer to as “revolutionary committees,” to conduct all sorts of skullduggery, from planning terrorist attacks to fomenting coups. Indeed, these diplomats have often served as agents for spreading Gadhafi’s revolutionary principles elsewhere. Because of this history, coalition members will almost certainly be carefully monitoring the activities of Libyan diplomats within their countries — and elsewhere.

As illustrated by most of the above-mentioned terrorist attacks launched or commissioned by the Libyans, they have frequently conducted attacks against their targeted country in a third country. This process of monitoring Libyan diplomats will be greatly aided by the defection of a large number of diplomats in a variety of countries who undoubtedly have been thoroughly debriefed by security agencies looking for any hints that Gadhafi is looking to resume his practice of terrorism. These defectors will also prove helpful in identifying intelligence officers still loyal to Gadhafi and perhaps even in locating Libyan intelligence officers working under non-official cover.

But diplomats are not the only source Gadhafi can tap for assistance. As noted above, Gadhafi has a long history of using proxies to conduct terrorist attacks. Using a proxy provides Gadhafi with the plausible deniability he requires to continue to spin his story to the world that he is an innocent victim of senseless aggression. Perhaps more important, hiding his hand can also help prevent reprisal attacks. While most of the 1980s-era Marxist proxy groups the Libyans worked with are defunct, Gadhafi does have other options.

One option is to reach out to regional jihadist groups such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), while another is to cultivate already improving relationships with jihadists groups in Libya such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). Indeed, Gadhafi has released hundreds of LFIG members from prison, a process that continued even after the unrest began in February. It is doubtful that the LIFG really feels any affinity for Gadhafi — the group launched an insurgency against his regime in the mid-1990s and actually tried to assassinate him — but it could be used to funnel funds and weapons to regional groups like AQIM. Such groups certainly have no love for the French, Americans or British and might be willing to conduct attacks against their interests in exchange for weapons and funding from Libya. AQIM is desperate for resources and has been involved in kidnapping for ransom and drug smuggling to raise funds to continue its struggle. This need might help it overcome its disdain for Gadhafi.

In the long run groups like AQIM and LIFG certainly would pose a threat to Gadhafi, but facing the very real existential threat from the overwhelming military force now being arrayed against him, Gadhafi may view the jihadist threat as far less pressing and severe.

Other potential agents for Libyan terrorist attacks are the various African rebel and revolutionary groups Gadhafi has maintained contact with and even supported over the years. Many of the mercenaries that have reportedly fought on the side of the Libyan loyalist forces have come from such groups. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Gadhafi could call upon such allies to attack French, British, Italian or American interests in his allies’ respective countries. Such actors would have ready access to weapons (likely furnished by Libya to begin with), and the capabilities of host-country security services are quite limited in many African states. This would make them ideal places to conduct terrorist attacks. However, due to the limited capabilities exhibited by such groups, they would likely require direct Libyan oversight and guidance (the kind of direct Libyan guidance for African rebels demonstrated in the UTA Flight 772 bombing) if they were to conduct attacks against hardened targets in Africa such as foreign embassies.

Also, as seen in the wake of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Christmas Day bomb plot in 2009, which originated in Ghana, passenger and cargo screening at African airports is not as stringent as it is elsewhere. When combined with Libya’s history of attacking aircraft, and placing bombs aboard foreign aircraft in third countries, the possibility of such an attack must surely be of grave concern for Western security officials.

Terrorism, however, has its limitations, as shown by Gadhafi’s activities in the 1980s. While the Libyans were able to launch several successful terrorist strikes, kill hundreds of people and traumatize many more through terror multipliers like the media, they were not able to cause any sort of lasting impact on the foreign policies of the United States or France. The attacks only served to harden the resolve of those countries to impose their will on Gadhafi, and he eventually capitulated and renounced terrorism. Those Libyan-sponsored attacks in the 1980s are also an important factor governing the way the world views Gadhafi — and today they may be playing a large part in the decision made by countries like France that Gadhafi must go. Of course, it is also this attitude — that Gadhafi must be forced out — that could lead him to believe he has nothing to lose by playing the terrorism card once again.