PREPARING FOR WAR AGAIN

The u.s. is constantly preparing for war against those who won't bow down to them , with their 700 military bases around the world, we can see who wants domination of the planet.
  Their screeching about Iran and openly saying it could be the end of that country shows us who's next. Read this :

How Long Must This Go On?
Tankers Damaged in Persian Gulf—America Again Ratchets Up Threats, Danger of War Against Iran

June 17, 2019 | revcom.us

The U.S. is—once again—ratcheting up tensions, escalating its aggression, and heightening the danger of a potentially devastating war against Iran.

On Thursday, June 13, two oil tankers—one Japanese, the other Norwegian—were damaged, apparently from an explosion, as they were in transit near the mouth of the Persian Gulf—a major route for world oil shipments, which lies off Iran’s southern coast.

Within hours, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran. “It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today,” he declared, but he didn’t provide definitive evidence to back up this “assessment.” The U.S. Central Command quickly produced a timeline of the attack and a grainy video, which supposedly showed Iranian Revolutionary Guards removing an unexploded mine from the hull of one of the damaged tankers. The next day Trump claimed there was no doubt—the attack had “Iran written all over it.”

The truth, however, is that it’s not yet known exactly what happened to these two tankers (or to the four ships that were damaged in the Gulf on May 12, an incident the U.S. also blamed Iran for).¹ The fuzzy U.S. video is far from conclusive, and the owner of the tanker it ostensibly shows said the ship was damaged by a flying projectile, not a mine as the U.S. claimed, a statement consistent with initial reports of the incident. Iran denies any involvement in the incident, and then there’s America’s long history of lying and creating pretexts for aggression and war, including the fabricated 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident used to escalate the Vietnam War, and the fabricated weapons of mass destruction “intelligence ” the U.S. used to justify its invasion of Iraq in 2003.²

It’s also possible that Iran carried out the attack, perhaps as a warning to the U.S. and its allies that Iran has the ability to disrupt global energy shipments and the global economy if they don’t ease their escalating economic sanctions and military pressure. (Three days before the incident, Iran’s foreign minister warned that those who were waging “economic war” on Iran shouldn’t think they’d “remain safe.”)

The Biggest Lie of All—America as a Force for Good in the World

Whoever is behind this particular incident in the Gulf, it’s crucial to step back and look at the bigger picture and the bigger forces at work—and not be bum-rushed into supporting U.S. aggression or war by this system’s lying politicians and media. Because the biggest lie of all is the whole framework they peddle 24-7: that Iran (or whoever stands in the way of U.S. imperialism at any given moment) is the main aggressor and culprit here, while the U.S. is a force for good in the world that’s acting reasonably and merely trying to keep the peace.

Iran is an oppressed, Third World country run by a reactionary theocracy which is battling to maintain its rule and contend for influence in the region.

But that doesn’t make the U.S. the “lesser evil ” or a force for good in the world! The U.S. is the biggest, most dangerous aggressor here and around the world. It bears the main and overwhelming responsibility for ratcheting up the suffering of the Iranian people and heightening the danger of a devastating war:

• Pompeo called Iran’s alleged action “unprovoked,” but it’s the U.S., not Iran, that in 2017 busted out of the nuclear deal they agreed to (with other world powers) in 2015, immediately escalating tensions.
• It’s the U.S. that then went back on its promises to lift sanctions and viciously re-imposed them, openly declaring they were seeking to cripple if not collapse Iran’s entire economy and greatly increase the suffering of Iran’s 80 million people.
• Pompeo blustered about Iran’s “nuclear blackmail,” but it’s the U.S. that’s deployed nuclear capable B-52 bombers, an aircraft carrier strike group, and thousands more troops to the region, and has threatened “the official end of Iran” if they don’t bow down. (Meanwhile, Iran has no nuclear weapons.)

And draw the lens back further:

• It’s the U.S. which directly dominated and exploited Iran for 25 years—from 1953 to 1979—after installing a torturing tyrant in a CIA-orchestrated coup overthrowing a legitimately elected nationalist government.³
• It’s the U.S. which helped instigate the bloody eight-year war Iraq launched against Iran in 1988, a war which left hundreds of thousands of Iranians dead or wounded.
• And it’s U.S. capitalism-imperialism which has ruthlessly dominated and plundered the entire Middle East region—and most of the globe—for the past 70 plus years. It’s the U.S. which has launched war after war after war, has over 700 military bases around the world, and is now carrying out military actions in at least six different countries. All this is to maintain a global empire of exploitation and oppression, NOT to serve humanity!

Sharp Differences, Grave Dangers

There are sharp differences, grave concerns, and a certain element of turmoil within the ruling class—including within the Trump/Pence regime—over the possibility that the U.S. may end up at war with Iran. They all agree that Iran’s regional influence, actions, and ambitions conflict with U.S. imperialist interests, posing a challenge to U.S. domination in one of the most strategically vital parts of the world.⁴ They fundamentally agree with America’s necessity and “right” to dominate the Middle East. For example, leading Democrats who oppose going to war with Iran now also call Iran “a major threat to our national security,” warn against its “malign activities,” and demand the U.S. “be more vigilant than ever in fighting Iranian aggression.”⁵

At the same time, there are serious differences on going to war, especially with a country with a relatively strong and developed military, what in the words of the New York Times could be a “cataclysm ” and ultimately hurt U.S. imperialist interests instead of furthering them.

It is not clear how all this will unfold from here, but it is clear that U.S. actions, including its response to this latest incident, have again increased tensions and potential “tripwires” that escalate the danger of a military clash or even war in the region.

These are not “our” actions, the rulers’ debates are not “our” debates, and the interests of these imperialists are not “our” interests. They reflect the predatory interests of the imperialist system and the class that rules it, and are diametrically opposed to our interests, the interests of humanity. All the moves and actions the U.S. is undertaking in the Middle East should be resolutely opposed by people in this country in particular. It’s intolerable for people here to sit passively by—which amounts to tacit support while people around the world are murdered, maimed, terrorized, or starved by the U.S. again, and again, and again. (See U.S. Imposes Crippling Sanctions on Iran: A Major, Dangerous and Utterly Illegitimate Escalation.)

How Long Must This Go On?

Many people across society are rightly alarmed that the U.S. is ratcheting up dangers of another war in the Middle East—one with the potential to be far more devastating than even the horror America has inflicted on Iraq, where some 1 million people have died because of its 2003 invasion. But the question they need to be asking—and digging into HERE—is why does this system wage war over and over and over...what will it take to end America’s unending wars...and what is their responsibility in the face of this—including to repudiate American patriotism and doing all they can to end this scourge on humanity?

1. See, "Iran: America Plays Imperialist Roulette in the Gulf—Putting Millions of Lives at Risk" [back]

2.In 1964, the U.S. claimed that North Vietnam had attacked the U.S.S. Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, then used the “incident” to escalate its war on Vietnam. No such attack took place. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. cherry-picked and outright fabricated “intelligence” that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had chemical, biological and perhaps nuclear weapons, and posed an imminent threat to the U.S. In fact, Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) years earlier under UN and U.S. supervision, and after the U.S. invaded its inspectors found no – zero - WMD. [back]

3. See, "American Crime--Case #98: 1953 CIA Coup in Iran: Torture and Repression – Made in the U.S.A." [back]

4. See, for example, revcom.us article “U.S. Imposes Crippling Sanctions on Iran: A Major, Dangerous and Utterly Illegitimate Escalation.” [back]

5. “Even as he criticized Trump’s recent actions, Representative Seth Moulton last week called Iran “a major threat to our national security.” In a statement emailed by her staff, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand condemned its “malign activities.” Senator Cory Booker has in the past insisted that the United States “be more vigilant than ever in fighting Iranian aggression.” Peter Beinart, “Even Democrats Keep Thinking Iran Is Worse Than Saudi Arabia - The 2020 candidates are resisting the latest brush with war, but they’re not going far enough,” The Atlantic, May 21, 2019.

THIS IS THEIR WORLD

This is their world, the world the imperialists have created , the one they say cannot be improved under any other system but theirs. Remember when the liberals were doing fucking backflips because obama said he'd get health care to some poor kids in the u.s. ? Did anyone say a fucking thing about the kids his government was bombing the fuck out of in other countries ? And of course this shit continues under fuckface trump. Read about their democracy :

420 Million Children—One in Five Children in the World—Are Growing Up in War Zones
THIS is the World of Imperialism

June 13, 2019 | revcom.us

It is a horrifying statistic: 420 million children are growing up in war zones.That’s greater than the entire population of the United States. That’s almost one in five children on this planet who are suffering indiscriminately and disproportionately in wars and conflicts that have everything to do with imperialism.

According to a recently published and extensively researched study, Stop the War on Children:

• Thousands of children in the oppressed countries of the Third World are dying in battle-related killings and destruction each year. But far more—hundreds of thousands of children each year—are dying in these zones due to the indirect effects of these conflicts: malnutrition, disease, and the breakdown of health care, water, and sanitation.
• Thirty percent of children in Africa and 40 percent in the Middle East are living in conflict zones, subjected to being killed, maimed, kidnapped, and deliberately starved, and are facing acute health risks.
• In war zones like Yemen and Syria, schools and health infrastructure are targeted for bombings. Warring factions block aid convoys. In the conflict zones of Africa, children become prey to child labor and sex trafficking.

The death, destruction, and dislocation have been major factors fueling the catastrophic global refugee crisis. It is now the case that one in 200 children in the world is a refugee.

It is staggering; it is heart-wrenching. Vast numbers of children in the Third World are growing up in these conditions, if they even make it to adulthood. Growing up in a world dominated and devastated by imperialism… by a system that is as cruel as it is unnecessary.

Deafening Silence in the U.S.

Was this report, Stop the War on Children, publicized in the U.S. media? No. Was it a source of public discussion and outrage in America? No. Did Democratic presidential hopefuls demand an immediate halt to America’s unjust wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria? Did they call for emergency investigations into the Obama and Trump administrations for arming and politically supporting its client regime, Saudi Arabia, which is bombing hospitals and schools and carrying out other war crimes in Yemen? Do you really need the answer?

These politicians are ever so shrill denouncing Russian “meddling” and “interference” in America’s elections. What about the fucking meddling and interference by America and other Western powers that are destroying the lives and futures of… 420 million children?

The Brutal Logic and Deadly Hand of Imperialism

Here in alphabetical order are, in the words of the report, “the ten worst conflict-affected countries to be a child.” Keep in mind as you look at this list that in 5 of these countries(*), the U.S. is waging wars or engaged in military interventions and operations, or providing vital military and logistical support:

*Afghanistan
Central African Republic
Democratic Republic of Congo
*Iraq
Mali
Nigeria
*Somalia
South Sudan
*Syria
*Yemen

These countries did not emerge spontaneously as “conflict zones.” They have long been dominated economically, politically, and militarily by imperialism, even if they are formally independent states. Their populations have been exploited for profit. Their resources have been plundered for profit—Congo’s minerals are vital to the supply chains of imperialism. Many have been battlegrounds in the great-power rivalry and geopolitics of imperialism. In all of them, munitions from the U.S., Russia, the UK, France, Germany, and China have been pouring in.

But maybe, someone might suggest, distressing as all this is… things are improving. No! The 420 million children living in war zones today is more than twice as high as in 1989-91, when the Cold War ended. Between 2016 and 2017 alone, the number of children in these zones increased by 30 million!

A. Imperial Invasions, Proxy Wars, and the Toll on Children

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1990 destroyed much of the country’s water and health systems. Not satisfied, the U.S. imposed punishing sanctions on the population: Iraq was prevented from selling oil and generating the revenue to obtain needed medical and other supplies. As a result, 500,000 Iraqi children died in the 1990s. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001. And it invaded Iraq again in 2003—to topple a regime that was a thorn in its side and to turn Iraq into a strategic platform to project U.S. power in the oil-rich Middle East.

But the two invasions of Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan did not go according to plan. They have unleashed chaos and fueled all kinds of civil war. In 2017 in Afghanistan, 3,179 children were wounded or killed, many from U.S. bombing and drone strikes.

In Syria, the U.S. is waging a proxy war with Russia. In other words, each side is fighting through intermediaries to advance its regional and global interests. Russia is backing the oppressive regime of Bashar Hafez al-Assad, and the U.S. is backing and arming local reactionary forces seeking to topple the regime. It is a war of atrocity. Today, one- third of Syria’s schools lie in rubble; and one in four children is at risk of developing a mental health disorder.

B. U.S. Arms Sales and Mass Destruction in Yemen

The U.S. is the top arms exporter in the world. The transfer of arms is a major means by which it secures its influence and domination over regimes that serve its regional and global interests. Saudi Arabia was the main recipient of U.S. arms sales in 2014-18. You see, the Middle East is a key region of the world—for oil, global trade, and transit routes—and Saudi Arabia with its oppressive, theocratic regime is a key cog in the U.S. empire’s domination over the Middle East and for confronting Iran.

An insurgency and civil war in Yemen is endangering Saudi Arabia’s position—and so the U.S. gives the green light for slaughter.

Saudi Arabia is carrying out war crimes in Yemen. Revcom.us has extensively documented the world’s largest and imperialist-caused humanitarian crisis. On average, Saudi Arabia carries out 14 air strikes a day. Hospitals, clinics, schools, school buses, apartment buildings, markets, gas stations, factories, and farms are strafed, bombed, and destroyed. One in five schools in Yemen is no longer being used; an estimated two million children in Yemen are out of school. And in the two years 2016-17 alone, 113,000 children starved to death, or died of malnutrition and preventable diseases, like cholera.

C. Memo from the U.S.: Arms Treaties Mean Nothing When They Interfere With Our Imperial Interests

The Stop the War on Children report makes the point that the sale of arms to a country like Saudi Arabia that commits humanitarian and human rights violations (targeting civilians and children in Yemen) is illegal under the terms of the 2014 Arms Trade Treaty. Conveniently and arrogantly, the U.S. has refused to sign the treaty.

The report also calls attention to landmines, one of the most indiscriminate battle weapons of the modern era; they especially endanger children and civilians in populated areas. True to form, the U.S.—we’re talking the Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations—has steadfastly refused to sign the 1999 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban. Why does America continue to stockpile three million landmines? Because, the U.S. proclaims, its military reserves the right to use these weapons in a conflict on the border between North and South Korea. No matter the human price.

***

This is a world that cries out for revolution, a revolution to overthrow this imperialist system. A communist revolution to bring about a world in which children’s well-being is valued… in which the very existence of a global divide between a handful of rich countries and the majority of humanity living in poor countries, being exploited and plundered by rich countries, has been overcome… a world where exploitation and oppression are no more… in which children can grow, learn, and flourish as part of and contribute to a world community of humanity.

References:

Stop the War on Children: Protecting Children in 21st Century Conflict, Save the Children International, 2019 (https://www.stopwaronchildren.org/report.pdf)

Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2018, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2019 

HOW MUCH LONGER ?

There will be some people shaking their heads and mumbling about how there are other ways to combat police murder and brutality . What other ways ? Voting ? Fucking petitions ? How long has the u.s. been around, and what the fuck has voting achieved outside of duping people into thinking it can actually fucking change anything ? Read this.

On the Righteous Rebellion
Against Police Murder in Memphis:
How Long Will We Bury Our Own?
Until We Bury This System!

From the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour and the Revolution Club

June 13, 2019 | revcom.us

On June 12, federal marshals killed Brandon Webber, a young Black man from the Frayser neighborhood in Memphis. People in the neighborhood had had enough and decided to let the world know just how fed up they are, bravely standing up against guns, gas and all the rest. This gives heart not just to people in America, but all over the world. Standing up against police murder is righteous and we need more of it. 

Now ask yourself this: How many Black and other oppressed people have been shot down like this, by murdering cops in one city after another? How many have found justice from a system for whom the lives and humanity of Black people mean absolutely nothing? How long has this system carried out exploitation, outrage and mayhem against Black and other oppressed people, here and around the world? How long? Way too long. And unless and until we make revolution—unless and until we overthrow this system… unless and until we defeat and dismantle their armed forces of repression and violence… this same shit, along with all the other horrors this system brings down, will go on. And on. And on.

We need a revolution—an actual revolution. The leader of the revolution, Bob Avakian, says:

…We have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all…

Or,

MAKE REVOLUTION!

We are the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour and the Revolution Club. We are working right now to bring that revolution closer, working to reach and move the millions we need to actually WIN.

Learn what we’re about. Be part of this. Go to www.revcom.us or follow us on social media @tuneintorevcom. Get into the work and leadership of Bob Avakian, BA, at this same site.

This System CANNOT Be Reformed! 
It MUST Be Overthrown!

North Memphis, Tenn., June 12, 2019, after the murder by police of Brandon Webber. Photo: Jim Weber/Daily Memphian via AP

HUMAN RIGHTS FRAUD

This person believes in human rights for imperialists and their supporters only, never mind what his official bio says. Palestinians, Iranians, and anyone who opposes what the state of israel does and north amerikkkan imperialist intervention are excluded. He is a liar and warmonger.

:16

Canada’s leading apologist for Israeli war crimes disrupted

Irwin Cotler at Concordia University

Last week members of Quebec Movement for Peace disrupted a speech by Irwin Cotler on “Canada as a Human Rights leader” (at the last-minute ‘deputy’ foreign minister, Rob Oliphant, canceled his participation). With “Free Palestine” signs in hand, filmmaker Malcolm Guy and I took the stage to denounce Cotler’s anti-Palestinian positions and support for intervention in Venezuela and Iran. After we were ushered off the stage lawyer Dimitri Lascaris rose to interrogate the supposed human rights activist for refusing to criticize injustices inflicted upon Palestinians. Part of the way through Lascaris’ grilling a handful of us at the back of the room began chanting “Cotler, Cotler, you will see Palestine will be free”, as one can hear in this video viewed over 10,000 times.

The Electronic Intifada, Media Coop, Algemeiner and Canadian Jewish News (twice) reported on the intervention (CPAC was purportedly live streaming the event). Prominent anti-Palestinian activists such as Gerald Steinberg, Hillel Neuer, Avi Benlolo and Bernie Farber decried our challenge of their hero. Head of the Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group (CIIG), Michael Levitt created the Twitter hashtag StandWithCotler and called on other MPs to support it, which was duly followed by his CIIG colleagues, including disgraceful NDP MP Randall Garrison. In the House of Commons CIIG Vice-Chair David Sweet asked the government to condemn our disruption of Cotler. The Conservative MP noted, “on Monday he was disrupted and berated during a speech at Concordia University in an attempt by protesters to shut him down.” (After 10 minutes we voluntarily left the room and Cotler spoke extensively.) Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Oliphant, who was scheduled to speak alongside Cotler, expressed the government’s solidarity with the former Liberal party justice minister.

Cotler is a vicious anti-Palestinian who aggressively criticizes “enemy” states while largely ignoring rights violations committed by Canada and the US. In “Canadian apologist for Israeli war crimes nominated for Peace Prize” I detail Cotler’s long-standing devotion to Israeli violence and recent promotion of war on Iran and regime change in Venezuela. But, since that story was published in March more details have emerged about Cotler’s ethno-centrism and promotion of violence. In recent days Cotler has been widely quoted criticizing the use of the term “genocide” in the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

According to an Israel National News story, Cotler supports relocating Canada’s embassy to Jerusalem. During “Keep Jerusalem” leader Chaim Silberstein’s visit to Canada last month, Cotler reportedly “expressed enthusiasm” for moving the Canadian embassy and “promised to help promote” the idea within the Liberal party.

In response to our action activist Ron Saba shared a photo of Cotler at last year’s Jewish National Fund fundraiser in Toronto. The explicitly racist JNF excludes the 20-25% of non-Jewish Israelis from its vast landholdings mostly stolen from Palestinians in 1948. In 2017 the Canada Revenue Agency initiated an (ongoing) audit of the JNF for supporting the Israeli military in contravention of Canadian charitable law.

For his part, Masud Sheikh responded to our action by uploading a video — apparently scrubbed from the Internet after previously reaching a Canadian audience — of the Nobel Peace Prize nominee advising Israel on planning a war. Just after Israel killed 1,200 Lebanese in the summer of 2006 Cotler spoke to a conference of top Israeli military officials on the importance of managing the message in modern war.

He did something similar after an earlier Israeli invasion of its northern neighbour. In an April article retired Guelph professor Michael Keefer wrote: “In the wake of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, in the course of which some 15,000 civilians were killed and several thousand Palestinians massacred in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, Cotler participated in a 1984 Jerusalem conference on Hasbara: Israel’s Public Image. Alluding to two of the lesser PR disasters of the war—the IDF’s violation of the Canadian ambassador to Lebanon’s diplomatic immunity, and a Canadian Red Cross doctor’s allegations of Israeli atrocities—Cotler recommended, not that Israel change its behaviour, but rather that it ‘make Hasbara a priority’ and enhance its capacity to offer ‘an authoritative rebuttal’ to such stories.”

In that article Keefer points out that Antony Lerman, founding editor of Antisemitism World Report, called Cotler “one of the key figures” promoting the idea of a “new antisemitism”. Since the 1970s he’s been arguing that criticism of Israel is the “new antisemitism”.

In a remarkable 2002 essay titled “Human Rights and the New Anti-Jewishness” Cotler lays out his thinking, suggesting a confrontation between the “secular religion” of human rights and Jewish “civil religion” of Zionism. He argues that criticizing Israeli human rights violations is “the contemporary analogue to the medieval indictment of the Jew as the ‘poisoner of the wells.’ In other words, in a world in which human rights has emerged as the new secular religion of our time, the portrayal of Israel as the metaphor for a human rights violator is an indictment of Israel as the ‘new anti-Christ’ — as the ‘poisoner of the international wells’ encompassing all the ‘teaching of contempt’ for the ‘Jew among the Nations,’ this new antisemitism implies.”

Cotler further argues that antisemitism has retained its consistent essence as “an assault upon whatever is the core of Jewish self-definition at any moment in time—be it the Jewish religion at the time of classical antisemitism, or the State of Israel as the ‘civil religion’ of the Jewish people under this new anti-Jewishness.” So, because most Jews identify with Israel criticizing that country’s violence or dispossession of Palestinians is anti-Semitic.

Challenging Cotler is important. All high-profile anti-Palestinians should be asked tough questions and hopefully our intervention inspires others to take similar actions. But, it’s also about de-mystifying an individual who retains a progressive gloss. Last month NDP MP Hélène Laverdière and Green Party leader Elizabeth May attended a press conference organized by Cotler calling on Canada to impose sanctions on Iranian officials and list the country’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. New NDP foreign critic Guy Caron participated in a subsequent event on Iran and NDP MP Murray Rankin and May regularly attend events led by Cotler. May and Rankin are also part ofthe Cotler-led Raoul Wallenberg All-Party Parliamentary Caucus for Human Rights.

The Cotler ‘brand’ should be toxic on the Left. Politicians need to know that many Canadians — as Lascaris put it in his concluding statement to Cotler — consider him “a fraud when it comes to human rights.”

SHEDDING SOME LIGHT

Many people have most likely forgotten about kkkanada's insidious role in the destruction of Libya and nato's war crimes there , but you fucking should not.
Read this older article about the imperialist bloodbath that took place, with kkkanada playing a leading fucking position.

Libya: "Freed" and Forgotten

The motives behind NATO's military intervention in Libya

by NADIA KANJI

Goran Tomasevic, Reuters: NATO airstrikes destroy vehicles belonging to pro-Gaddafi forces

“Canada is proud to have played a leading role in the UN-sanctioned NATO mission that helped protect civilians during the liberation of Libya,” said Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, almost a year after Canada dropped their first four 500-pound bombs on Libya.

Canada’s military mission in Libya, said Baird, was about “respond[ing] to the demands by the Libyan people for democracy and freedom.” Baird visited Libya in 2011 to show support for the regime change, which Canada would support with a warship, six Hornet fighter aircrafts, two Boeing CC-177 Globemasters, two CP-140 Auroras, 200 Canadian Forces personnel, and other material. Canada allocated $20 million to help destroy weapons of mass destruction, provide electoral assistance, generate employment, and assist the Libyan authorities through IMF reforms.

In February and March 2011, UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973 were passed, allowing NATO to militarily intervene in the Libyan civil war under the “responsibility to protect,” and authorizing a no-fly zone. On March 19th, 2011, NATO began bombing the South of Benghazi. During that same week, and with considerably less fanfare, Saudi Arabian troops crossed into Bahrain to suppress democratic protests.

Canadian Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard was appointed commander of NATO’s military mission in Libya. Canada started off Operation Mobile by bombing the city of Misrata, east of Tripoli. Two months into their military mission, Canada had dropped 240 bombs on Libyan targets, and engaged in psychological warfare by diffusing messages to Gaddafi loyalists telling them not attack civilian populations. They finally ceased their military operations within a couple weeks of Gaddafi’s death in the Battle of Sirte.

While most will agree about the number of bombs dropped, narratives diverge when it comes to the overall effect of NATO’s intervention.

Three years after the intervention, armed militias continue to ravage Libya; the country has collapsed into a drawn-out civil war: Patrick Cockburn, the Independent’s Middle East correspondent, described a 2013 visit.

“Libya is imploding. Its oil exports have fallen from 1.4 million barrels a day in 2011 to 235,000 barrels a day. Militias hold 8,000 people in prisons, many of whom say they have been tortured.”

Speaking at the same time about the same intervention, NATO members are lauding themselves for what Foreign Affairs called a “model intervention”. In Canada, Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP all voted in favor of the Libyan military intervention and continue to speak positively about it.

The Canadian public may have had a different view, but it lacked advocates in the political class. “Opinion polls showed 70% of Canadians were opposed, said Jooneed Khan, former foreign correspondent for La Presse, “but the government, the opposition, and the media ignored that, and were all gung-ho for war.”

Canada didn’t just implement the no-fly zone mandated by UN Resolution 1973. “They bombed government positions, and quite a lot of civilians were killed, and then they even went into ground operations which was totally illegal,” said Khan.

NATO has been accused of war crimes in Libya for targeting civilian areas. There is an investigation into the cause of 47 civilian deaths in Sirte. A Human Rights Watch reportreleased in 2012 titled “Unacknowledged Deaths” describes eight NATO air strikes in Libya that killed 72 civilians, including 20 women and 24 children.

As the Gaddafi-led government collapsed, militias vied for power and human rights abuses were rampant. Zahra Moloo, a reporter for Integrated Regional Information Networks who was in Libya a little over a year after NATO intervened told the Media Co-op that the situation was “explosive.”

“Thousands of [internally displaced persons] from around the country had come to Tripoli,” said Moloo. She added that the town of Tawergha, made up of about 30,000 people, was viewed as a pro-Gaddafi stronghold after they launched an attack on Misrata. “Residents of Misrata reported being tortured and raped by Gaddafi loyalists from Tawergha, and so the subsequent Misrata-based militias descended on Tawergha and the population fled.”

"The last I heard is that they are still displaced, over two years later," she said.

The conflict appears to be escalating. Three young activists were recently beheaded in Derna. According to Libya Body Count, 2483 people have been killed in 2014 alone. According to the International Red Cross and Libyan Red Crescent, “there is an acute shortage of medical supplies,” which gravely affects victims of ongoing violence.

Arms supplied to resistance fighters by Canada, the US and others may be making the situation worse. Robert Fowler, a Canadian diplomat who was kidnapped by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), told the Ottawa Citizen that arms “stolen from Libyan stockpiles during the uprising have found their way into the hands of AQIM and other Islamic groups in the region.” Khan added that arms were channeled to Syrian rebels from the Libyan stockpile. According to Fowler, factions of ISIS are now starting to operate in Libya.

Arms and fighters backed by the West in Libya may now be stoking civil wars in Iraq and Syria. In a vicious cycle of military intervention, David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen suggests that in its fight against ISIS in Iraq, Canada might now start bombing the very rebels they supported in the first place, now that ISIS is moving people from Syria and Iraq into Libya.

Vijay Prashad, the author of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter, argues that Western intervention was not necessary to replace Gaddafi. “By the time the Americans started talking about intervening, a third of Libya was out of Gaddafi’s hands. [...] His rule was going to fall. There was no need for NATO intervention,” he said in an interview with Democracy Now.

Other initiatives, such as a proposal by the African Union, could plausibly have avoided the ongoing, multi-year civil war that ensued. The proposal suggested the implementation of a ceasefire, and using diplomacy to come to a solution. According to Alex DeWaal of the World Peace Foundation, it was “unfairly derided and dismissed by the western powers.”

Why did NATO intervene in Libya?

As Arab Spring uprisings toppled western-backed governments in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), the West’s influence in the Middle East suddenly became precarious.

Egypt, the biggest Arab country in the MENA, is home to the Suez Canal and exerts geopolitical significance. The US has been financially supporting Egypt since the Camp David Accords in 1979; billions in military and economic aid ensure that Egypt’s government protects Israel's western border and controls the crossing into Gaza. Egypt was one of the first countries to join the US-led military coalition against Iraq in 1991, and they backed US moves to curb Iran’s influence in the region.

Stanford professor of Middle East History Joel Beinin told Salon.com that aside from the Jordanian and Saudi monarchies, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was the most important US ally in the region. The alliances were based on “the defense of oil... the defense against the vast popular anger in the Arab and Muslim world against the United States — for its positions vis-à-vis Palestine-Israel, for invading Iraq, […] which led to the unnecessary deaths of untold Iraqi children,” Beinin said.

If Mubarak could be deposed by protesters, what other US allies might follow? US allies in the Gulf were feeling the heat from protest movements, which were gaining momentum. Saudi Arabia had its own uprising, which started after a 65 year-old man set himself on fire in the town of Samtah. People that tried to organize protests were shot. Government forces used live ammunition against protesters in Yemen. Protests in Kuwait were met with smoke bombs. A major uprising of the Shia majority in Bahrain made headlines briefly, but little was said in the west when it was crushed by government forces and Saudi troops.

The US, scrambling to maintain regional dominance, needed to regain the initiative. The March 2011 bombing of Libya was the first of a series of decisive moves that gave the US control of the situation. Obama declared support for the resistance in Egypt, moved to assemble a coalition to bomb Libya and began stoking a civil war in Syria. Media attention shifted away from democratic movements aiming to topple repressive US-backed monarchies in the Gulf and focused on official US enemies.

Three years later, stories about democratic movements have been replaced with headlines about civil war and attendant atrocities. According to Noam Chomsky, this is typical of Western reactions. He described the the pattern in an interview with IPG Journal:

support your favorite dictator as long as possible. If it becomes impossible because the military or business classes turn against him or for some other reason, then send him off somewhere, issue ringing declarations about your love of democracy, and try to restore the old order as fully as possible 

The West backed the dictators oppressing people and then superficially backed the oppressed only when it was clear that the dictators were on their way out. “You get Sarkozy and Obama and all of them talking as if they are the children of Tahrir square,” Prashad said, “when actually they’re cronies of the fellows who are being thrown out.”.

What’s the difference between Abdullah and Gaddafi?

Libya’s Gaddafi-led government, like many other western-backed Gulf leaders, imprisoned and tortured regime opponents while repressing protests. However, the regime compared favourably to its North African neighbours in some respects. Gaddafi's government maintained sovereignty over Libya’s resources, provided free healthcare, and free education. His government attempted to engage citizens through the Jamahiriyya, or “state of the masses,” where people made decisions through congresses. According to the UNDP, with life expectancy at birth at 74.5 years, an 88.4% adult literacy rate and a gross enrolment ratio of 94.1%, Libya had one of the highest Human Development Indices in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Considered for decades a rogue state, Gaddafi staged a dramatic rapprochement with the West after September 11th 2001. He renounced the development of weapons of mass destruction and payed 1.86 billion pounds to the relatives of the 1988 Lockerbie victims. Though his human rights record at home had scarcely improved, Western leaders began to warm up to the oil-rich country. Gaddafi welcomed Canadian companies like SNC Lavalin and Suncor, among many other international players, with open arms.

Former Prime Minister Paul Martin was one of the first leaders to engage with Gaddafi. Proud of his heritage and typically extravagant, Gaddafi agreed to meet with Martin in a green and yellow tent in the Libyan Desert. Prime Minister Martin and Gaddafi shook hands and smiled as they announced deals worth one billion dollars.

“We are friends not just because he is the prime minister of Canada but we shall always be friends, even if he is not the prime minister,” said Gaddafi after their meeting.

The Canadian private sector, such as Pure Technologies, Petro Canada, and Caradan Chemicals, were able to enhance trade and investment with oil, telecommunications, and infrastructure industries. From $67 million worth of exports to Libya in 2006, this quickly increased to $246 million in 2010. In 2013, bilateral trade increased by 24.6% from 2012. Montreal-based SNC Lavalin particularly made the headlines in terms of economic dealings with the Libyan regime. Canada had a lot of investment at stake in Libya if Gaddafi had picked up his old ways.

NATO’s argument that they militarily intervened in Libya for humanitarian purposes, and to protect the Libyan people from Gaddafi’s human rights abuses is unconvincing when one looks at the West’s biggest allies in the Gulf. Despite Saudi Arabia’s 59 state-sanctioned beheadings just this year, the West’s alliance with them remains intact to this day. According to General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the Kosovo War, Libya was on a “hit list” of countries to be taken out by the United States, which also included Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. General Clark had received this information from the Pentagon.

Gaddafi has remained a precarious figure for the West. After nationalizing Western oil companies and closing down America’s air base after coming to power in 1969, Gaddafi was not a figure the West could easily meddle with. More recently in 2007, Gaddafi, with a bit of help from the African Development Bank, purchased Africa’s first communications satellite. This was an economic blow to European communication companies that previously pocketed $500 million annually to lease the satellite. Gaddafi did not capitulate to desires of the United States and its “junior partners,” like Canada and the EU. Gaddafi also had aspirations of creating asingle African trading bloc with its own currency. He tried to maintain some semblance of African unity and autonomy from the West by aiding in the establishment of the African Monetary Fund, the African Central Bank, and the African Investment Bank –initiatives that would decrease dependence on IMF and World Bank loans. Gaddafi’s track record is riddled with anti-imperialist gestures and rhetoric:

“There is a conspiracy to control Libyan oil and to control Libyan land, to colonise Libya once again. This is impossible, impossible. We will fight until the last man and last woman to defend Libya from east to west, north to south," he said on Al-Ouroba TV, a Syrian station in 2011.

Any alliance between Gaddafi and the West was doomed to be temporary. As soon as the Middle East became destabilized during the Arab Spring, his government became a target.

According to Khan, one of the main causes of NATO intervention was due to the Gaddafi regime’s ongoing measures to decouple African currencies from the US dollar. He was working on the concept of a gold dinar based on oil for all African transactions. “That has been nightmare for the European Union, and for NATO countries, and OECD countries,” said Khan.

Gaddafi was one of the last few leaders who didn’t acquiesce to the West’s demands. According to a cable released onto Wikileaks, the Libyan National Oil Company threatened to nationalize Petro Canada’s assets after being snubbed by a Canadian government official.

Gaddafi never completely let go of his anti-imperialist habits; nor did he wholeheartedly adopt neoliberal policies as pro-western leaders are usually expected to. Despite gradual economic liberalization, Gaddafi “did not turn over the resources of the country to Western oil companies,” said Khan. “He was playing his cards in a realistic way.”

Still, according to Moloo, a lot of people claim that the situation in Libya under Gaddafi prior to the intervention was great, which is “simply not true”.

“I think that some people were glad that there was an intervention because it allowed them to have a new start to build their country,” she said, “but I think there wasn’t a realization of the extent to which they actually weren’t in control of their own country finally.”

While Gaddafi held onto power for four decades, he built a prison in Tripoli with the help of Montreal contractor SNC Lavalin, crushed dissent, and violated human rights. However, NATO’s motives for intervention in Libya appear to have had a lot more to do with regional dominance and trade deals, than with promoting democracy.

R2P

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P), championed as a form of humanitarian intervention, is a doctrine maintaining that the international community has the right to militarily intervene in a country when sovereign states are not fulfilling their duties to protect their own civilian populations from atrocities. When Canada’s military helped remove a democratically elected government Haiti in 2004, it was justified under R2P. More recently it was used to justify intervening in North Africa.

Either Western countries take up arms through unilateral intervention, as the US did in the 2003 Iraq war, or they do this under the guise of a humanitarian intervention, as was the case with Libya. R2P has been contrasted as a softer approach to invasions and regime change than the unilateral invasion with a “coalition of the willing” championed by George W. Bush.

According to Prashad, the Arab Spring provided the US with a new platform where it could save face after the US’s 2003 invasion in Iraq.

“R2P re-legitimized the United States’ ability to intervene into countries after being delegitimized in Iraq,” he said. […] It gave them enormous opportunity to say this is a humanitarian operation, nothing to do with our interests.”

As a result, the Saudis were able to crush dissent in Bahrain, dampening the Arab Spring’s momentum in the Gulf Monarchies while Western attention was directed to Libya, where the West could portray themselves as saviors. Prashad also pointed out NATO’s hypocrisy by questioning why R2P was not implemented in the Congo where the death toll was incomparably higher than in Libya.

Divide and Conquer?

The United States is currently militarily involved in at least 49 out of the 54 African states, what Seamus Milne of The Guardian compares to “a new carve-up of the continent: a scramble for resources and influence in the face of China's growing economic role, underpinned with an escalating military presence that spreads terror as it grows.”

Militias across the country are leading to an increasing amount of polarization. They are using the very arms that NATO had given the Libyan rebels to try and gain control over Libya. Though oil production is steadily increasing, the control of oil is yet to be determined due to ongoing tensions between the two adversarial governments. Detainees are languishing behind bars to their death without fair trial, and militias in Misrata are killing protesters.

General Khalifa Haftar is currently playing a leading role in fighting Islamist groups, namely Libya’s al-Qaeda franchise, Ansar Al-Sharia. He lived near Langley, Virginia for 20 years with a deep-seated grudge against Gaddafi after the war in Chad. This raised suspicions that Haftar was a US asset who was trained by the CIA. He was also associated with the US-backed National Salvation Front against Gaddafi in the 80s.

Over three years after NATO intervened under the pretext of “respond[ing] to the demands by the Libyan people for democracy and freedom,” as Baird put it, it seems to be that they have failed to do so. In September of this year, NDP MP Jack Harris spoke in Parliament about the aftermath of Canada’s “humanitarian” mission in Libya, which became strictly about overthrowing Gaddafi. 

"The effort to provide some support based on the responsibility to protect turned into a very different mission... that we had to get Gadhafi. We had to destroy the government totally. Then everybody left, and what was left behind was a country that was unable to govern itself. There was civil war, which is continuing now, followed by destruction into Mali and other things. [...] The nation building that was required did not take place. The assistance to form a stable government did not take place. We are now left with a mess in Libya, south of Libya in the desert, and in Mali."

The NDP's about face on the Libya intervention is testament to the fact that according to its stated aims, Canada's mission has failed in Libya. 

 

Libya shows that even countries with a widespread desire for democracy can be torn apart by reckless militarily interventions that have nothing to do with sowing reform. Under the guise of democracy promotion and human rights, Canada helped create an ongoing civil war and bolstered the enemies it is now bombing in Iraq. But it isn't clear that Canadians are getting that message.

 

But that's the message that needs to get through. Vijay Prashad explained the aftermath in the simplest terms. “It takes hundreds of years to build a state; you can destroy it in an afternoon."

AND THIS IS WHY

This is why I love these people and why they are worthy of your support :

Prepare the Ground, Prepare the People, and Prepare the Vanguard—Get Ready for the Time When Millions Can Be Led to Go for Revolution, All-Out, With a Real Chance to Win.

WELCOME TO ALL WHO SAW

IN THE SKY ABOVE AND 
IN THE STREETS OF LOS ANGELES!

JUNE 8, SOUTH CENTRAL LOS ANGELES,
THE REVOLUTION DELIVERED 
A MESSAGE TO THE WORLD

BASTA YA!/ENOUGH!
We Need A Revolution!
A Better World IS Possible!

3:30 pm gathered at Florence and Broadway to march

4:00 pm rallied at 77th Division of the LAPD 

Marching to 77th Street Pig Sty

 

The rally at the notorious 77th Precinct culminated a caravan 
that went through key spots in South Central LA.

WE INDICT AMERIKKKA! The blood-soaked imperialist rag goes up in flames in front of the brutal 77th precinct pig sty! The RevComs have declared a political war on the system and are determined to see this through.

On Sunday, June 9, attend workshops and trainings. More info here.

Follow @TuneIntoRevCom on Twitter for live updates.

Welcome to the revolution.

The future of humanity and the planet is in peril. The wind of fascism gathers momentum. The interlocking horrors at the foundation of America—white supremacy, male supremacy and America-First chauvinism—are being taken to new levels, threatening the future of billions.

These horrors cannot be reformed away; they are built into the system of capitalism-imperialism.

Bob Avakian, the leader of the revolution, tells it true:

“[W]e have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, make revolution!”

We are ORGANIZING NOW TO OVERTHROW THIS SYSTEM to bring about a radically new and better society: the New Socialist Republic in North America. We are touring the country to organize thousands today for the time when millions can be led to make an actual revolution.

If you yearn for real liberation not just for yourself but for all of humanity, learn about, spread the word about, and join us in making this revolution real.

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A better world IS possible, but a nightmare is upon us. The future is unwritten, which one we get is up to us.

#RevolutionNothingLess!