Guardian: Liberal Humanitarians serve as USEFUL IDIOTS for NeoCon PNAC strategy for Libya

[Distant Observer]

The Gardian's David Swanson disects the various rationalizations for the intervention in Libya show that none of the popular pretexts have a basis in truth and international law.

The "humanitarian generosity" pretext would be laughable if it was not so tragic. Liberal humanists are being used as “useful idiots” by string-pullers behind the curtain. Whatever civilians the intervention theoretically protected from slaughter, the intervention immediately killed other civilians with its bombs. Military action immediately shifted from protecting civilians to attacking retreating troops and participating in an aggressive armed civil rebellion that involved massive indiscriminate bombardment of cities on an ambitious rebel drive to Tripoli. The human and social cost of civil war and biological contamination from depleted uranium dust will far out-weight anything that was documented or even predictable from the Gaddafi regime's brutal efforts to crush the rebellion.

The "regional stability" justification is just FUNNY. It assumes that stability in Africa is now a US and European mandate. It ignores the fact the "Arab Spring" phenomenon is itself the major source of instability in the region. Is the US goal to end or "control" Arab Spring in order to maintain stability?

The "buttressing UN credibility" rationalization is seen as a fraud when we look at the behind-the-scenes machinations engaged in to get certain votes and to prevent vetos. UN credibility is actually undermined by the transparent bait and switch tactics used by the Adminstration as they started with asking for a NFZ then delivered language that could be interpreted in diplomatic Newspeak to allow an agressive war. “The United Nations, far from being made credible, is being made the servant of wealthy nations making war on poor ones. “

Swanson concludes that the only coherent motive for the libyan intervention lies in the same NeoCon "Project for a New American Century (PNAC)” that motivated the Iraq invasion and its drive to maintain Western control over the global financial system and to increase control over global oil.

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

Libya: another neocon war

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

The United States was in the business of supplying weapons to Gaddafi up until the moment it got into the business of supplying weapons to his opponents. In 2009, Britain, France and other European states sold Libya over $470m-worth of weapons . . . We are arming those dictatorships (Bahrain, Yemen etc). In fact, to win the support of Saudi Arabia for its "intervention" in Libya, the US gave its approval for Saudi Arabia to send troops into Bahrain to attack civilians, a policy that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly defended.

Washington imported a leader for the people's rebellion in Libya who has spent the past 20 years living with no known source of income a couple of miles from the CIA's headquarters in Virginia. . . Former supreme allied commander Europe of Nato, from 1997 to 2000, Wesley Clark claims that in 2001, a general in the Pentagon showed him a piece of paper and said:

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

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

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

[marmar]

1. Looks like you've got a brackets problem [....] somewhere in your post.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. There's a square bracket around the "s" in the word six where the strikeout line starts n/t

[polly7]

3. K&R

Many of us were posting about the five year - seven country plan a long time ago and were called conspiracy nutcases for it. Thanks for this, I have to admit I was duped myself at first over this latest excursion into Libya. It's all bullshit.

[Poboy]

4. I too was duped at first and am now chastened.

Silly, gullable me. PNAC of course.

[inna]

9. Read Pepe Escobar at asiatimes. Some enlightening stuff.

Link: http://atimes.com/atimes/others/Pepe2011.html

The guy hates Gaddafi, btw.

[Distant Observer]

15. We all were at the very start of the protests. The MSM is so bought in everything is slanted.

[EFerrari]

20. I'm actually surprised I noticed as soon as I did.

But for me the key was reading #Jan25 day and night for at least a week and then following in other ways after that. You get a sense of what grassroots really "sound" like.

The Libyan stream was nothing like that. It's like three hysterical posters and professional media. That's it. No there there.

[Distant Observer]

25. After the drama of Egypt it was difficult to see the opportunistic nature of the SCAM

[EFerrari]

28. But easier if you've heard it before, like the fiftieth time some guy

walks up to your seat at the bar and asks you your sign. :)

[Distant Observer]

33. No experience with "guys at the bar" but I was part of protest, facing riot police and army and

it is not so easy to quickly switch to massively armed insurgency. It takes a few weeks just to get organizationaly and emotionally to the molotov cocktail stage. Those guys in Libya were just too quick to be a real "peaceful protest" effort.

[EFerrari]

47. Yes, that, too. n/t

[TorchTheWitch]

64. No, not all of us were

Some of us were paying attention long before the protests.

[sabrina 1]

42. A lot of people were, me too. Now I feel guilty for supporting

it and adding to encouraging those poor people to go fight a battle they had not chance of winning. They were just being used as a pretext for the eventual occupation and takeover of Libya, just like Iraq. They will have no say in what replaces Qadaffi as the Iraqis have now sadly learned.

[Distant Observer]

46. What you say is so to the heart of it. Living and let live is such a precious thing

that can be lost for a lifetime of civil strife and killing once it starts down that path.

It is so sad, and we remain safe while they are dying in a conflict that others, in large part, have instigated.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Remarkable coincidence, UK & France had planned war games against "Southland".

This was just prior to the Arab uprisings. How fortuitous for them.

When War Games Go Live: “Staging” a “Humanitarian War” against “SOUTHLAND”

We invite our readers to think and reflect on the logic of military planning.

Military operations of this size and magnitude are never improvised. The war on Libya as well as the armed insurrection were planned months prior to the Arab protest movement. In the words of Rep. Denis Kucinich:

“While war games are not uncommon, the similarities between ‘Southern Mistral’ and ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’ highlight just how many unanswered questions remain regarding our own military planning for Libya.

The ‘Southern Mistral’ war games called for Great Britain-French air strikes against an unnamed dictator of a fictional country, “Southland.” The pretend attack was authorized by a pretend United Nations Security Council Resolution. The ‘Southern Mistral’ war games were set for March 21-25, 2011.

On March 19, 2011, the United States joined France and Great Britain in an air attack against Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

Scheduling a joint military exercise that ends up resembling real military action could be seen as remarkable planning by the French and British, but it also highlights questions regarding the United States’ role in planning for the war. We don’t know how long the attack on Libya has been in preparation, but Congress must find out. We don’t know who the rebels really represent and how they became armed, but Congress must find out. (Denis Kucinich, Kucinich: President Had Time to Consult with International Community, Not Congress? | Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, Press Release, March 29, 2011)

http://theglobalrealm.com/2011/04/17/when-war-games-go-live-staging-a-humanitarian-war-against-southland/

[sabrina 1]

58. Wow, that's interesting, I had not seen that before.

Thanks for posting, while it's interesting, would anyone be surprised?

Amazing coicidence:

“While war games are not uncommon, the similarities between ‘Southern Mistral’ and ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’ highlight just how many unanswered questions remain regarding our own military planning for Libya.

The ‘Southern Mistral’ war games called for Great Britain-French air strikes against an unnamed dictator of a fictional country, “Southland.” The pretend attack was authorized by a pretend United Nations Security Council Resolution. The ‘Southern Mistral’ war games were set for March 21-25, 2011.

On March 19, 2011, the United States joined France and Great Britain in an air attack against Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

Amazing. Kudos to Kucinich for revealing that but did Congress pursue it? Are they even interested in doing their duty, at all?

[JohnyCanuck]

67. ..." did Congress pursue it? Are they even interested in doing their duty, at all?"

Don't hold your breath.

[Distant Observer]

76. Listen to McCain and Lieberman -- they prob represent the foreign policy brains of this congress.

It's shameful.

[inna]

6. EXACTLY. K&R

[Thunderstruck]

7. How much longer are Russia and China going to tolerate our shit?

[inna]

8. "Multipolarity" is the world's only chance right now, as far as I can tell. nt

[Distant Observer]

18. Unfortunately, when world unity is really needed, China and Russia may veto cus they were burned on

this vote.

They have no both publicly declared that the resolution is not being implemented as was presented
at the UNSC and now oppose coalition actions.

[BOG PERSON]

32. we need less world unity and more division imo

culminating in a final, glorious clash of civilizations

[Distant Observer]

81. What most don't realize is the BUREAUCRATIC UNITY across Presidencies - the NeoCons are deep in

Obama administration simply because they became deeply embedded into the administrative system during the 8 years of Bush. The agendas are still there, running the system.

[EFerrari]

10. K&R even though I hate that term. n/t

[inna]

12. What term? K&R or NeoCon? just curious.

:)

[EFerrari]

13. Useful idiots.

:)

[inna]

14. lol, oh, that one!.. i know, i hate it too.

:hi:

[Distant Observer]

26. It exactly describes how the progressive cheering section is being used

[wildbilln864]

11. k&r! nt

[a la izquierda]

16. And there were some of us who got berated...

for not supporting it to begin with (I got raked across the coals on Facebook for calling a spade a spade).

[Distant Observer]

29. That's an understatement - manhood, integrity, patriotism, morality etc questioned

[TorchTheWitch]

65. Yep

A lot of that berating and coal raking shit went on right here.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. America has a long and glorious history of "humanitarian" wars..assassinations..torture.

And, none of them were about resources...well...maybe a couple..few..the majority..but, think "vital national interests" and "collateral damage".

[gratuitous]

19. When the only definition of "intervention" allowed was military action

Some people smelled a rat. Is it too late for the pebbles to vote, which is to say, has the avalanche already begun?

[Distant Observer]

21. What was really weird is that the Libyan Gov was OPEN to dialog. CNN can get a visa! In contrast

to many other countries with repressive regimes.

[crickets]

22. Bingo. K&R

[slay]

23. This has been my assessment as well

and why I am AGAINST ALL WARS (we need to leave Afghanistan and Iraq NOW). I do not trust the people in power - especially the PNAC crew.


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GIchwvJ-aNk/SX5a4Erii-I/AAAAAAAAFac/bfVGWDVrOuQ/s400/Stop+All+War+street+sign.JPG

[JVS]

24. LOL. This ought to be interesting.

[Hannah Bell]

27. kr

[girl gone mad]

30. k & r

[Ramulux]

31. I have been saying this since the beginning

It has been sickening hearing liberals say how great it is that we are invading and bombing Libya. We have already killed many civilians, but I guess they are just collateral damage and apparently it is better when we kill civilians rather than Qaddafi.

[Amonester]

34. So, what do you suggest? Let Gaddafi murder thousands as he pleases?

Yeah, that will show these sheeple of his 'who is the boss' (forever)....

Let's cower in our little cozy suburbs and pretend we don't know.

[Ramulux]

35. What are you talking about?

What do you mean "let" Qaddafi murder thousands? Is every other country in the world allowing Qaddafi to murder thousands by not participating in this invasion?

Are you saying that if bad things happen anywhere in the world we are responsible if we dont go in and declare war on that country and save the people?

You are aware that horrible things happen all over the world every day? Should we invade Syria? How about Bahrain? Yemen too? What about N. Korea, what happens there makes what is happening in N. Africa and the middle east look like nothing. N. Korea is a massive nation-wide concentration camp run by literally insane egomaniacs who think they are gods. They shit on and murder their people all the time and we do nothing about it. Are you saying that its America's fault that all those N. Koreans die every year because we dont go in and liberate them?

Since when is everything that happens everywhere in the world America's responsibility? How can you say we are letting Qaddafi kill his people when we have nothing at all to do with what he is doing?

[Amonester]

37. Ok. Let them die. The world is already over-populated anyway.

I don't care for anyone anymore.

Count me in.

[Ramulux]

51. So you have no response to my point

Why dont you try to formulate a counter-argument to my theory rather than making some useless sarcastic comment.

[Distant Observer]

56. Don't you notice that it is the "rebels" who take over towns by force, attack and kill those that

oppose them or whomever they dislike- be they local officials, police, soldiers or poor immigrants just seeking to hide from the conflict.

The heavy-handed gov reaction kills surely kills others too. It is a civil war going on, aided and abetted by outside interests.

[Distant Observer]

36. Its their country. Urban insurrections are horrible to the citizenry and so is gov efforts to fight

insurrections. There have been few deaths in this conflict that even in the non-violent protests elsewhere, if you haven't noticed. But it is still awful.

That is how it is with civil wars. Best to seek dialog, compromise and a road to a representative process.

It seems the Gov is willing to do that but the rebels keep insisting that its their way or else -- they will get their foreign backers to kill more people.

[Amonester]

38. The 'Gov'affi will kill them as soon as he'll get a tiny chance....

with or without dialog, compromises, and a road to a representative process, and they know it.

Looks like you don't.

[Distant Observer]

40. Guess you have little knowledge of the history of the Libyan revolution

The coup was bloodless and there is no history of massacres for 40 years despite often dictatorial policies.

THERE IS NO HISTORY TO BACKUP WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. Only propaganda. Ask the many foreign policy experts
who have said the same in testimony before congress.

[joshcryer]

49. Actually, the coup was bolstered by the CIA.

The king wanted to return with an armed force but the CIA stopped him. This is well known.

[Distant Observer]

52. I was in Africa at that very time. We followed it. You don't seem to know very much, unfortunately,

because the coup was spectacularly clandistine.

The elites in Libya did not know what to make of it for a long time. The CIA had no part in the coup, so just because the US would not back a counter-revolution by the theocratic monarchy is meaningless.

It would have been a futile bay of pigs 2. There were numerous coup attempts later once the Western powers saw that Gaddafi was nationalizing the oil industry. Those failed.

Now they are at it again. They don't care about the consequences for the average Libyan people.

[joshcryer]

57. No, the US stopped the "counter-revolution" they didn't "fail to back" they purposefully...

...stopped anything from happening. The US was very friendly with Gaddafi, even removed our bases for him.

The average Libyan is rising up against Gaddafi now and I know that bothers you.

[Distant Observer]

60. OH, the US happily removed their bases?? What history are you reading?

Do you have any knowledge of the history of US foreign policy and foreign interventions?
Do you know how many millions have died as the side-effect of interventions from Indonesia, South-East Asia,
Africa, Latin America, etc not to mention the more recent adventures?

[joshcryer]

63. Absolutely.

And in this case the US didn't keep their bases. It's simple. Gaddafi was thought to be a good friend of the US so we propped him up. It took 40 years but he finally started sucking up to us. He was by no means an anti-imperialist, with over 40 billion in assets tied up in the west.

[Distant Observer]

68. You have been smoking something. Please refer to some sources written prior to the present

propaganda war.

I and my buddies actually lived this history, and you are either deliberately distributing fiction or are simply miss-informed.

Good luck with your education.

[Distant Observer]

70. I BEG you to do some background reading (see cites). The lack of knowledge is PAINFULL

Please refer to standard texts on Kaddafi and Libya written prior to current dissinformation campaign.
Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution, 1987, David Blundy, Andrew Lycett
Libya's Qaddafi: The Politics of Contradiction, 1997, Mansour O. El-Kikhia

Or even do a simple search and read some commentary on the current dissinformation campaign.

http://www.politicalarticles.net/blog/2011/03/24/disinformation-on-libya-what-the-imperialist-western-media-is-hiding/

Disinformation on Libya: What The ‘Imperialist’ Western Media is Hiding
Posted on 24 March 2011
By: Miguel Urbano Rodrigues

Two weeks have elapsed since the first demonstrations in Benghazi and Tripoli. The disinformation campaign about Libya has sown confusion in the world.

First a certainty: the analogies with events in Tunisia and Egypt are misplaced. These rebellions contributed obviously to depoliticize street protests in both neighboring countries, but the peculiar Libyan process has characteristics inseparable from the conspiring strategy of imperialism and what can be defined as the metamorphosis of a leader.

Muammar Gaddafi, unlike Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, took an anti-imperialist position when he seized power in 1969. A puppet monarchy was abolished, and for decades he has practised a policy of independence, beginning with the nationalisation of oil. He has practised a strategy that promoted economic development and reduced egregious social inequality.

[inna]

74. lol, i feel your pain, and...

you're wasting your time with that poster.

thanks for trying, though.

Disinformation and propaganda re. Libya is mind-boggling, it's absolutely Orwellian.

[Distant Observer]

80. Gawd! The diss-information is beyond belief. Its mind-shattering watching talking heads

who clearly don't have a single real fact in their brains.

[KoKo]

41. Is he threatening You or Your Family? What does Libya and who rules it have to do with you?

:shrug:

[Amonester]

44. Fudge it. Let that 'old europe' deal with the flood of refugees all by themselves.

After all, why bother my 'beautiful mind' about it, eh?

[Distant Observer]

71. There were few refuges from Libya before the insurgency -- There was massive in-migration to Libya

[sabrina 1]

45. Who encouraged those people to fight an unwinnable battle

in the first place? I thought at first they knew something we did not, and that a majority of Libyans, like Egypt and Tunisia, were FOR the rebellion. But that is not the case, and it was hard to have to admit being wrong.

This appears to have been planned OUTSIDE the country back in the Fall right after Qadaffi decided to cut the profits France et al were making. It was piggy-backed, cleverly, onto the Arab Spring, but now I see it had nothing to do with that.

If anything, the urgency of the West to get into Libya and most likely set up another puppet government, is to STOP the Arab Spring taking place in both neighboring countries. The West is losing its control finally, over those African nations, and we should have known they would not give up so easily.

It ignores the fact the "Arab Spring" phenomenon is itself the major source of instability in the region. Is the US goal to end or "control" Arab Spring in order to maintain stability?

From the OP, and I think the answer is clearly 'yes'. They've lost Mubarak and Ben Ali doing their bidding. They badly need a 'friendly' government in the region before it's too late, and Libya was always part of the PNAC plan, so now is a good time to make their move.

[joshcryer]

48. It appears that way only to the paranoid. But let's assume it's 100% true.

They were all encouraged and manipulated by outside forces (unsubstantiated, but let's take it as true). The rebellion was a popular rebellion, both in Misrata and Benghazi (And Zinten, and Al Zawiya, and many of the western cities). Do you do nothing to help them?

Let's be clear, though, the "outside forces" slanders are very similar to the Trotsky/Lenin slanders toward the soviet sailors who wanted to implement democracy in the Third Revolution in Russia. They were slandered as imperialists, too, all because they wanted democracy. We saw where that lead. So you'll excuse me if I require strong evidence to believe these unsubstantiated slanders that would be irrelevant even if they were true.

[Distant Observer]

50. The militant factions leading the rebellion have NO HISTORY OF WANTING DEMOCRACY

In the past the justifications for opposition have varied from charges the Gaddafi was a heretic from faithful Islam to being a secret Jew to a desire for control over the oil wealth from their part of Libya.

There is a real history to the opposition movements and the Gaddafi regimes actions, sometimes brutal, sometimes benevolent, to suppress them.

The current "story" is all an invention of western information operations, plain and simple.

[joshcryer]

53. The innuendos are irrelevant. Are the people in Benghazi daily building democratic institutions?

Yes or no?

[Distant Observer]

54. How would we know. All information is controled at this point. We know the background of factions

involved (mixture Sharia purist, Islamic militants, power-grabbing Cyrenaicans formerly part of the Gaddafi regime -- and the history of Western-installed regimes.

Not looking good for free and fair democratic representation with religious tolerance.

IN FACT, THEY HAVE REJECTED ELECTIONS UNLESS THE OPPOSITION IN TRIPOLI IS FIRST OVERTHROWN BY FORCE OF ARMS.

[joshcryer]

55. I guess you can READ THE REPORTS in Benghazi since JOURNALISTS ARE ALLOWED FREE ACCESS.

Or you could stick your head in the sand and believe outright lies being told to you by Neo-Stalinists like Max Forte.

Also, they know that they cannot have elections until Gaddafi is overthrown because it would create a divide in the country, and they wanted a united Libya.

But, it's cute that you cite Gaddafi offering to have elections for people who supposedly are having an armed insurrection against him.

The logic is amazing! :rofl:

[Distant Observer]

59. The AFRICAN UNION put forward a plan for INTERNATIONALLY SUPERVISED ELECTIONS

The Western powers have disgustingly ignored AU initiatives and opinion.
Their attitude is sadly reminiscent of the old days of colonial superiority and domination.

But objective review of the proposal suggests that the rebels might be the ones who
afraid they don't have majority support in the country.

Benghazi is one city, unified as the seat of power of the old Cyrenaican King and religious head.
Does the rest of the country want to be ruled again by Cyrenaica??

THAT IS THE QUESTION THAT NEITHER THE REBELS NOR THEIR EXTERNAL BACKERS WANT PUT TO A TEST.

[joshcryer]

62. Why would GADDAFI support ELECTIONS for an ARMED INSURGENCY?

[Distant Observer]

66. Are you really UNAWARE that there was a plan in the works for ELECTIONS before the insurgency began?

Gadddafi was happily un his way out. Problem has been that elections may not have got the various faction in the power struggle the big windfalls that they and their foreign backers wanted.

[Distant Observer]

72. For 40 year the regime has never done what you suggest. THE REBELLION IS A SCAM

[inna]

75. the "rebels":

source: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/vicman130411.html



This is what it's all about:

[KoKo]

39. Good on David Swanson...The Guardian..!

Good Read!

[Rage for Order]

43. Proud to say I was against the war in Libya before it was cool to be against it

Charter member of the "stay out of it" club

[Zorra]

61. I'm a humanitarian liberal, and I was against the intervention

before anyone was publicly considering intervening.

[Starry Messenger]

69. k&r

[bvar22]

73. Qaddafi used to be our BFF.

He even enjoyed the White House Red Carpet treatment when he visited last year.

”Gaddafi is the perfect villain for this Anglo-French-American farce unworthy of French playwright Georges Feydeau. For all his dictatorial megalomania, Gaddafi is a committed pan-African - a fierce defender of African unity. Libya was not in debt to international bankers. It did not borrow cash from the International Monetary Fund for any "structural adjustment". It used oil money for social services - including the Great Man Made River project, and investment/aid to sub-Saharan countries. Its independent central bank was not manipulated by the Western financial system. All in all a very bad example for the developing world.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD27Ak01.html

If you're not FOR the New WAR in Libya,
you're WITH The Communists AlQaeda The Terrorists Saddam Qaddafi!!!

[Distant Observer]

78. Unfortunately, he insisted on maintaining a BAD EXAMPLE of financial independence

and investing too much in unprofitable development project in poor countries.

[bvar22]

79. A Bad Example, only if you are with the IMF, Global Coprporate Predators,

or subscribe to NeoLiberal Economics (The Democratic Party version of Reaganomics).

Would you include President Evo Morales of Bolivia
and Chavez of Venezuela in your column of "Bad Examples"

"The worst enemy of humanity is U.S. capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neoliberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge this reality, that nation states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then each day the most fundamental human rights are being violated."
----Bolivian Reform President Evo Morales

FDR said much the same thing in 1944 with his Economic Bill of Rights.
Bolivian President Evo Morales sounds more like FDR than anyone in the Democratic Party Leadership.



"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone

[Baclava]

77. ho ho ho! Yes - I was called out for being a kooky isolationist for opposing this war from the start

Go look in the LBN early reports of the Libya no-fly zone actions (before we were allowed to call it a war) - it's all there.