Thursday, March 3, 2011

Is the Libyan regime the target of a massive disinformation campaign? (UPDATED WITH VIDEO FROM TRNN)

I looked around.  The best I could find is some footage of some explosion off a road in the middle of the desert "near" the city of Breda.  While the smoke is rising you can hear the sound of a jet engine.

Ok.  Let's assume that this is indeed a bomb/missile strike by the Libyan Air Force. I would say that since a) there are no civilian areas to be seen anywhere in the footage b)  the road is filled with armed anti-Gaddafi forces here is what this footage is really showing:

Some jet pilot loyal to Gaddafi apparently detected the movement of anti Gaddafi forces on the highway and attempted to strike them.  The pilot missed by a big margin (due to incompetence, faulty equipment or deliberately) and then left.

What does al-Jazeera do with this footage?  It titles it "Jets dropping bombs in and around Libya's eastern town of Brega" (notice the plural and the location).  The reporter then says that the university was particularly targeted and that he spoke to a doctor who told him that 20 people where killed.

First, if what I saw in the footage is what they are referring to, then its really trivial to the point of being boring.  There is nothing at all in international humanitarian law, in the law of war, the universal human rights, the Geneva Conventions or any other international legal instrument which bans the proportional use of military means against combatants.  Nothing at all.

The alleged bombing of the Brega university is less clear, but until we have evidence that the strike was either grossly disproportional or deliberately targeted a civilians there is no basis to accuse the Libyan regime of anything.  Yes, most people do not know that, but "collateral damage" as such has never been outlawed by any legal instrument.

Now, please, before somebody start thinking that I am pro-Gadaffi or anti opposition, I would like to make clear once more that I am in no way defending Gadaffi or denying that atrocities are committed by his forces.  ALL I am saying is that I see no evidence of that, so far.

I monitored the entire war in Bosnia and Croatia as a professional military analyst with access to intel briefings every morning and I know all too well how the international media is only too willing to parrot any US strategic psyop nonsense as long as it sells.  Think about it, the al-Jazeera reporter near Brega just made a handsome income by showing exactly what?  A plume of smoke over the desert.  For all I know, he could have added the sound of the jet engine himself.

I need to caution you all here: not only is the corporate Ziomedia totally and absolutely unreliable, most reporters are lazy at best and pathological liars at worst; they might show you 3 year old military training footage and call it "Gadaffi forces murdering peaceful civilians".  Then, in a situation of de-facto civil war, false flag operations are inevitable.  Again, in Bosnia, there were so many totally fabricated stories (like the Serbian concentration camps in Bosnia) and false flags attacks (for example in infamous "Markale massacre") which the corporate Ziomedia swallowed without any critical investigation that we should expect more (other examples of such propaganda are the "Timisoara massacre" in Romania, the "baby-incubator atrocity" in Kuwait or the "Racak massacre" in Kosovo).

The other scary thing is that al-Jazeera is constantly airing interviews of Libyans who are demanding that a no-fly zone be imposed upon Libya.  Why is al-Jazeera airing only such interviews even though, at least as far as I know, all Libyan opposition movements or leaders are very much opposed to this kind of 'help'.

Maybe it's my own past psychological traumas and bitter disappointments, but all this brings me a lot of very unpleasant flashbacks about the war in Croatia, Kosovo and, in particular, Bosnia.  The fact that I dislike Gadaffi just about as much as I disliked Milosevic makes the resemblance even more eerie.

One more thing.  Who is this former Justice Minister for Gadaddi who has now re-branded himself as a Libyan patriot?  You know, the guy in the little red hat you see making grand statements about Libya's future? (Sorry, I really did not catch his name)

The way I see it, in a repressive regime, the Minister of Justice is just about the worst rubber-stamping and torturing SOB possible.  So how did this guy suddenly end up being paraded around on the idiot box as some kind of 'opposition leader'?!

All this leaves me with a knot in my stomach, a sickening feeling of "deja vu", and a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

Please tell me that I am over-reacting, that my fears are unfounded, that Libya will not turn into a "2nd Bosnia" and that there is no cause to suspect the worst!

Can you?

The Saker

PS: one more thought: why are the self-righteous buffoons at the World Court seriously declaring that they are going to investigate Gadaffi and his regime when the Zionist state has bombed Palestinian civilians for many years without any such investigations?    What about the Turkish Air Force bombing the Kurds?  That kind of hypocritical crap - again - reminds me very painfully of all the "humanitarian theater" which was orchestrated by the US and Europe during the war in Bosnia.

PPS: yet another addendum: before some politically correct 'humanitarian' accuses me of white-washing genocidal dictators (or something else of a similar ilk) let me pre-empt this accusation by saying the following: false flag operations and disinformation campaigns only work when they are credible.  Look at the folks targeted in the ones I listed above: Milosevic, Ceausescu, Saddam - not exactly the kind of folks one would put beyond committing atrocities.  The false flags worked because their target was a known killer.  Ditto for 9-11, by the way.  If the USA had accused Luxembourg of it nobody would have believed it.  But when the US accused al Qaeda it worked perfectly.  Even the 100% baseless accusation that Saddam was supporting al Qaeda was largely accepted.  And if the Brits had decided to accuse Gandhi of eating babies or worshiping Satan and everybody would have laughed.  My point?  If Gaddafi is so easily targeted by strategic psyops (assuming that this is what is going on) it is because he is an unsavory character in pretty much the same league as Milosevic, Ceausescu or Saddam.

Oh, and before I forget: to those who today idealize Gaddafi like other idealized Saddam, Milosevic or Ceausescu in the past, I would say this: being anti-imperialist or the target of a psyop campaign does not automatically make you a good person, much less so a hero.  IMHO, Saddam, Milosevic and Ceausescu were all bloodthirsty maniacs, and I strongly believe that Gaddafi is every bit as evil as they were.

PPPS:  Excellent report from TRNN: