Tag: NATO

NATO’s decision to intervene in Libya on humanitarian grounds has become an alarming and revealing assessment of America’s understanding of war. The way the “established” media portrayed the Libyan conflict, and its subsequent reception, illustrates our society’s failure to recognize how the power dynamics of plutocratic governance shape our realities.

The people of the world need to know that the corporate media is fabricating a massif of lies concerning the on-the-ground facts of the illegal war against the people of Libya by American and NATO forces. News reports represent Qaddafi as a hated and unpopular leader. Yet he has struggled harder than any Western leader to champion the rights of the poor and abolish racism against Black people. I wish the world could see the universal support of the young people for their government.

Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a scathing statement on the relentless bombing of Libya by NATO forces at a press conference held at United Nations Plaza Hotel Millennium in New York City on Wednesday, June 15, 2011.

Speculation has been rife that ammunition used by the U.S. and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) contain “depleted” uranium. What to make of these stories?

Despite the ongoing silence of the international press on the ground here in Libya, there is clear evidence that civilian targets have been hit and Libyan civilians injured and killed.

Nobody can assure us that in its agony, the empire won’t be dragging human beings down to catastrophe.

Suggestions that the government of Muammar Qaddafi is on its last legs and that life in Tripoli has drawn to a standstill as a result of the NATO bombing campaign are not based on reality. Journalists have a duty to report the truth regardless of the whims of their governments.

The NATO war against Libya is not a humanitarian endeavor. It is a blatant war of aggression and a violation of international law. Tripoli’s Nasser University was bombed. University staff were injured and killed. There is no justification for this.

It is now 1:10 in the afternoon and as the daily life in Tripoli unfolds that includes teachers, staff and children at school, shopkeepers working in their businesses, streetsweepers sweeping the streets, people moving to and fro in cars, on bicycles and on foot, Tripoli has thus far since around 11:00 up to now, received at least 29 bombs. These bombs and missiles are not falling in empty spaces. Tripoli is a major metropolitan city of about 2 million people.

Gerald Perreira has lived and worked in Libya as an organizer and journalist and has been giving regular reports to Block Report Radio and the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. It is important to develop our own media and experts who can speak from an African perspective.

Today, independent journalists from across the United States departed on a truth-telling, fact-finding mission to Libya as debate in Congress on a resolution requiring an end to U.S. involvement was sidelined because it could actually have passed.

I visited the residence of the Qaddafi family, bombed to smithereens by NATO. For a leader, the house seemed small in comparison, say, to the former Clinton family home in Chappaqua or the Obama family home. It was a small house in a typical residential area in Tripoli, surrounded by dozens of other family homes.

Under the guise of a humanitarian mission, NATO and the combined militaries of the U.S., England and France are stealing Libya's sovereign wealth and resources. President Obama has already frozen US$30 billion that belongs to the Libyan Central Bank to inject into the U.S. economy.

I am pleased to stand with my colleagues today who are outraged at Nobel Peace Laureate President Obama’s decision to wage war on Africa in Libya. At the outset, let me state that Libya is home to tens of thousands of foreign students and guest workers. The students come from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. The messages I have received from concerned Africans state that these young, innocent people, inaccurately labeled by the U.S. press as “Black mercenaries,” have been trapped in hostile territory and are hated by the U.S.-allied Al Qaeda insurgents.

No blood for oil! Libya has the largest known oil reserves on the continent of Africa. The country is also a large producer of natural gas that is supplied to several European states. It is the resources of this country that U.S. imperialists want to control.

Bay Area journalist JR Valrey, the voice behind Block Report Radio on KPFA and associate editor of SF Bay View, known as the Minister of Information, reports vital news about the struggle against oppression. In the 31 interviews in his new book, "Block Reportin'," he shows what he calls the "big gap between what is going on in the world and what is being reported. I want to inspire people to become their own media and to truly speak on behalf of the people." Meet JR at his first book signing Saturday, March 19, 6:30 p.m., at Marcus Books, 3900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland.

Cynthia McKinney sets the theme for Black Resistance to Police Terrorism Month, marked by five events in two weeks – four in Oakland, on Feb. 7, 17, 21 and 22, and one on Oscar Grant in Los Angeles, on Feb. 18, the eve of killer cop Mehserle's Feb. 19 hearing – featuring your favorite speakers coming to Cali from around the country. And pack the courtroom Feb. 22, 8:30 a.m., 1225 Fallon, Oakland, for Minister of Information JR's trial. Free JR!