24 August 2011 — Stop NATO
- NATO Partnership In War Against Libya Serves As Model: Panetta
- NATO Pressures Compliant Canada To Stay Involved In Libyan War
- Canadian Drones, Mercenaries Aid Anti-Gaddafi Attacks
- NATO, EU To Give Stolen Libyan Financial Assets To Clients
- Germany Gives Libyan Rebels Advance On Seized Government Cash
- Video And Text: Second Colonization Of Africa Underway
- Venezuela Condemns Western Neanderthals For Devastating Libya
- CNN Poll: Should NATO Intervene In Syria?
- West Preparing Syria For Yugoslavia-Libya Scenario
- Pakistan: Eight U.S. Spy Planes; Tribesmen Mauled Beyond Recognition; 1,200 Killed By U.S. Drone Strikes So Far This Year
NATO Partnership In War Against Libya Serves As Model: Panetta
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=65119
U,S. Department of Defense
August 23, 2011
NATO Partnership in Libya Serves as Model, Panetta Says
MONTEREY, Calif. – Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta today called U.S. support for the NATO mission that’s helping opposition forces make progress against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime Libya an example of the international cooperation that will be critical in the future.
‘It is a good indication of the kind of partnership and alliances that we need to have for the future if we are going to deal with the threats that we confront in today’s world,’ Panetta told students during addresses at both the Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.
Panetta said he is particularly proud of the mission the United States performed as a NATO partner in Libya, including the establishment of a no-fly zone…
This support and assistance, he said, has been ‘part of the key in being able to help the opposition forces there ultimately be able to succeed.’
Panetta expressed hope that the opposition will succeed and NATO will have completed its mission. ‘It’s clear that the opposition has made significant gains. It’s clear that the regime forces are collapsing and that Gadhafi’s days are numbered,’ he said.
The United States continues to monitor events, but the situation remains dangerous and ‘very fluid,’ he said.
…
The Arab Spring, the name given to recent revolutions for democracy throughout the Middle East, is bringing change and in many cases, turmoil to the region, Panetta said. But it also offers ‘a chance to make that part of the world a better region, one that enjoys some of the values and some of the reforms and some of the political opportunities that we have in this country,’ he said.
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NATO Pressures Compliant Canada To Stay Involved In Libyan War
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/23/nato-may-pressure-canada-to-stay-on-in-libya
Toronto Sun
August 23, 2011
NATO may pressure Canada to stay on in Libya 6
By Daniel Proussalidis
OTTAW: [A]most no options have been ruled out for extended Canadian involvement in the North African country.
Parliament has supported Canadian military action there until Sept. 27.
Other than rejecting the idea of sending ground forces to Libya, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not specified what he’d like to see after that date.
‘For now, our military forces will remain in place and we will consult our allies on the next steps,’ Harper said in the lobby of the House of Commons on Monday.
Canadian and allied diplomats were holed up at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday discussing the Alliance’s role in the event Moammar Gadhafi’s regime is defeated, as seems likely.
…Col. Roland Lavoie, military spokesman for Operation Unified Protector, says NATO must stay involved in Libya as long as Gadhafi is in power.
‘There’s nobody who could predict when exactly the Gadhafi forces will drop their weapons,’ said Lavoie during a briefing in Brussels…
While the NDP has called for Canada’s air force and naval presence in Libya to end in September, NATO talks may place pressure on Canada to stay involved longer.
…
Early on in the conflict, the Canadian embassy in Tripoli suspended its operations and Canadian officials left the country.
…
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Canadian Drones, Mercenaries Aid Anti-Gaddafi Attacks
Globe and Mail
August 23, 2011
Made in Canada
Libyan rebels assisted by Canadian-made drones
Tu Thanh Ha
-There have been reports that British, French, Qatari or Jordanian special forces have been involved. Journalists have also spotted armed Westerners who appear to be either special forces operators or former soldiers employed by private companies.
-[T]he Scout is unarmed and classified as a consumer good so that it is not bound by the more restrictive export rules for military products…
Each device retails for $100,000 to $150,000.
Nearly a month ago…a fishing boat brought a former Canadian soldier to the besieged rebels stronghold carrying with him two small cases packed with high-tech gear.
Charles Barlow, who heads a private security firm, was bringing the rebels a remote-controlled aerial drone they had purchased from an Ontario robotics manufacturer.
The mission had been approved by the Canadian government, which played matchmaker, putting the Libyan rebels in touch with Aeryon Labs Inc. of Waterloo, Ont.
With the rebels’ entry into Tripoli this week, Aeryon has now revealed its role in providing them drones, offering a peek into how foreign governments have discreetly gone beyond the framework of the NATO bombing missions to help the anti-Gadhafi forces.
‘I hope we did a little tiny part to help get rid of that man,’ Mr. Barlow said in an interview.
How much outside assistance the rebels have received on the ground remains a secretive issue. There have been reports that British, French, Qatari or Jordanian special forces have been involved. Journalists have also spotted armed Westerners who appear to be either special forces operators or former soldiers employed by private companies.
A key development that brought Aeryon to Libya, Mr. Barlow said, was the federal government’s June 14 decision to recognize the rebel National Transitional Council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.
This allowed Canadian companies to legally do business with the rebels.
Aeryon CEO Dave Kroetsch said his company was contacted by federal officials who knew through NTC representatives in Canada that the rebels were looking to purchase their own drones. ‘We were approached by the Canadian government. They were very much aware of our technology.’
The American Predator drones flying over Libya are armed aircraft with 17-metre wingspans that are controlled by operators based in the United States. The rebels, however, needed something of their own, smaller, cheaper and able to give them video images in real time.
Two years ago, Aeryon had developed the Scout, a micro-drone. Shaped like a spider and electrically powered, the Scout weights only 1.3 kilograms and is about the size of an open umbrella. The rebels could use its cameras to observe enemy positions and plan tactical moves.
At the same time, the Scout is unarmed and classified as a consumer good so that it is not bound by the more restrictive export rules for military products, Mr. Kroetsch said.
Each device retails for $100,000 to $150,000. Mr. Kroetsch would not say how much the council paid but it is believed that only one or two were sent to the rebels.
The council paid upfront for the drones, Mr. Barlow said.
Since May, the NATO members, Arab states and other nations that make up the Libya contact group have set up a fund to assist rebel groups, financing it in part with frozen Gadhafi-regime assets.
Mr. Barlow now runs the Ottawa firm Zariba Security Corp. For the past two years, he has conducted drone training for Aeryon for prospective clients such as the Interior and Defence ministries of India and the governments of Oman and Saudi Arabia.
At the end of July, Mr. Barlow flew to Malta where he boarded a former South Korean tuna boat now operated by the council…
After an 18-hour sea journey, he landed in Misrata and was taken to the airport where he unpacked his hardware. He then showed the rebels how to fly the Scout, using it to check a pro-Gadhafi artillery position four kilometres away.
By the next day, Mr. Barlow was on his way out of the besieged city, but the Scouts stayed behind.
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NATO, EU To Give Stolen Libyan Financial Assets To Clients
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904279004576526401361037210.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Wall Street Journal
August 23, 2011
EU, NATO Try to Move Frozen Cash to Rebels
By John W. Miller
BRUSSELS: European Union and NATO officials said Tuesday they had started talks on giving aid and unfreezing key Libyan assets in overseas banks, but that it was too early to declare victory in Libya.
‘This is not over yet,’ Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign-policy chief, said at a news conference.
EU officials and leaders including Ms. Ashton have talked to Mahmoud Jibril, chair of the National Transitional Council…
What is left of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, said North Atlantic Treaty Organization Col. Roland Lavoie, ‘gives no sign of giving up their aggressive actions.’ NATO ‘will take out and target forces..,’ he said, highlighting fighting in the town of Brega, and around Tripoli.
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NATO ambassadors met Tuesday afternoon in private…Its planes have flown some 20,000 sorties over the Northern African nation.
Leaders from the EU, U.N. and Arab League will meet Friday in New York, said Ms. Ashton.
A key point will be unfreezing the overseas assets of the Libyan Central Bank, its sovereign wealth fund and other important entities, Ms. Ashton said. The EU ‘is really very convinced that it will be a very fast procedure,’ an EU official said afterward. ‘There is an urgent need of fresh money, to pay army, police and others.’
…
—Laurence Norman contributed to this article.
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Germany Gives Libyan Rebels Advance On Seized Government Cash
http://en.trend.az/regions/met/arabicr/1922133.html
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
August 23, 2011
Germany to loan funds to Libyan rebels within days
Germany is to begin lending 100 million euros (140 million dollars) to Libya’s rebel leadership within days, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Tuesday in Berlin, dpa reported.
Under an accord signed Monday in the Libyan city of Benghazi, the first tranche of the loan will be sent to the Transitional National Council to finance its operations.
…
Benghazi is to keep the money until the frozen foreign assets of the Gaddafi regime are released. Germany alone is holding assets worth 7.2 billion euros.
Westerwelle also called for the UN Security Council to pass a new resolution on Libya ‘as soon as possible,’ so that billions of dollars in frozen assets could be returned to the Libyan people.
…
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Video And Text: Second Colonization Of Africa Underway
http://rt.com/news/second-colonization-africa-554/
RT
August 22, 2011
Video
NATO’s operation in Libya is a perfectly planned political spectacle which marks the beginning of the second colonization of Africa, declared former Belgian Parliament deputy speaker Lode Vanoost.
‘The US and the European Union have very good professional analysts,’ he said. ‘They are not going to say it out loud, but they know perfectly well that there is not going to be a smooth and peaceful transition. That’s what they are counting on. That will give them a perfect excuse to intervene militarily on the ground.’
NATO will not pull out by the end of its mandate in September, he predicted.
‘I don’t like big words, but what I see is the beginning of the second colonization of Africa,’ Vanoost added.
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Venezuela Condemns Western Neanderthals For Devastating Libya
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/08/24/55079841.html
Voice of Russia
August 24, 2011
Venezuelan President condemns overthrow of Gaddafi
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez says there is only one Libyan government his country regards as legitimate – that of Col Gaddafi.
President Chavez has condemned involvement of the West in the Libyan situation accusing it of not taking into account freedom and laws of poorer nations by setting them against each other. Such actions are reminiscent of what life was like in primitive societies of the prehistoric past.
Mr Chavez has stressed that the Libyan scenario will never happen in Venezuela.
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CNN Poll: Should NATO Intervene In Syria?
CNN
August 23, 2011
Should NATO intervene in Syria?
Yes
No
It depends…
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West Preparing Syria For Yugoslavia-Libya Scenario
http://www.rnw.nl/international-justice/article/syria-un-first-predictable-steps
Radio Netherlands
August 21, 2011
Syria: UN – first ‘predictable’ steps
By Steven Kay QC*
The steps being taken in the UN and ICC to take international legal measures against Syria were predictable. Syria was warned that the recent outbreaks of violence would be an opportunity for those opposed to its government to make moves to destabilise its regime and prosecute its leadership.
The political and legal consequences of such measures are very uncertain but it is clear that the ICC process is being used during conflicts to aid one side against another.
Legal weapon
This use of international legal procedures as a weapon in a conflict was seen first in the 1999 Kosovo conflict when the ICTY Prosecutor entered the fray to issue for the first time an indictment against the Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic as a form of support to NATO in its campaign.
The indictment was not charging him with crimes in Srebrenica, Vukovar, Bosnia or Croatia. It only concerned Kosovo, which NATO was attempting to wrest from the control of Serbia, with measures that also included attacks in Serbia which is outside Kosovo.
Libya – ICC propaganda
It has also occurred this year in Libya, where the ICC, NATO and the Security Council have been combining their efforts. This conflict concerns the right of a sovereign state to protect itself from civil uprising.
Of course measures taken must be proportionate and lawful. But here we also heard the ICC enter into the propaganda business by claiming the Gaddafi troops were issued with viagra to rape women.
Iraq – illegal invasion
Consider now the allied invasion of Iraq. This is viewed by all international legal jurists as plainly falling into the illegal invasion category. Much death and destruction has been caused.
But was there any international prosecution notwithstanding such overwhelming evidence and weight from legal experts? Where is that ICC Prosecutor when you need him?
*Steven Kay is an international criminal lawyer based in London
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Pakistan: Eight U.S. Spy Planes; Tribesmen Mauled Beyond Recognition; 1,200 Killed By U.S. Drone Strikes So Far This Year
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=64357&Cat=7&dt=8/24/2011
News International
August 24, 2011
Concern grows in NWA as drone attacks increase
MIRAMSHAH: There has been once again an increase in the US drone strikes in North Waziristan after a meaningful silence of some time.
Four people were killed Monday in the latest missile attack by the CIA-operated unmanned air vehicle (UAV) on a house in the Sheenpond village of the Mir Ali subdivision situated on the border with Afghanistan’s troubled Khost province.
Residents said the four slain men were local tribesmen. Their bodies were damaged beyond recognition.
It was the 43rd attack by the US drones this year in North Waziristan. More than 1,200 people have reportedly been killed and many others were injured. Most of the injured have become disabled.
On Tuesday, around eight US spy planes were seen flying over various villages in Miramshah, Mir Ali and Dattakhel subdivisions of North Waziristan tribal region.
In some of the villages, the tribesmen complained they were performing their Isha prayers and Taraveeh in fear and tension due to the constant flying of drones over their villages and towns.
The New Dark Age 
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