The Washington Post now admits that the key role of Islamists in
Libya’s insurgence “went abundantly unnoticed” afore Muammar Gaddafi was
agitated endure month. But Robert Parry asks whose accountability was
that, back it was the Post and added Big Media that were acting added as
propagandists for “regime change” than honest brokers.By Robert Parry
During the six-month insurgence adjoin Muammar Gaddafi, above U.S. account outlets afresh afresh and afresh that the Libyan absolutist was abaft the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and they abandoned warnings that active Islamists were at the amount of the anti-Gaddafi insubordinate army.
Indeed, for Americans to get addition angle on these points, they had to seek out Web sites, like Consortiumnews.com, which had the adventurousness not to advance in lockstep with the blow of the Western media. Alone alfresco the boilerplate columnist would you acquisition cogent questions asked about the authoritativeness over Libya’s answerability in the Pan Am bombing and about the architecture of the rebels.
Now, afterwards the United States and its NATO allies accept engineered the adapted “regime change” in Libya – beneath the affectation of “protecting civilians” – those two credibility are advancing added into focus.
The New York Times and the Washington Post on Thursday assuredly accustomed that abolitionist Islamists, including some with links to al-Qaeda, are accumulation their ability central the new administration in Tripoli.
And, the accustomed dog not barking – even as Libya’s abstruse intelligence files accept been apparent to the eyes of Western journalists – is the absence of any incriminating affirmation apropos Libya’s role in the Lockerbie case. Earlier interrogations of Libya’s ex-intelligence arch Moussa Koussa by Scottish authorities aswell allegedly came up empty, as he was accustomed to leave London for Qatar.
Since Gaddafi’s fall, account outlets aswell accept appear that Libyan intelligence agent, Ali al-Megrahi, who was bedevilled of the Lockerbie bombing by a Scottish cloister and was afterwards appear on altruistic area because of terminal prostate cancer, is absolutely acutely ill, bedfast and acutely abreast death.
Megrahi’s balloon in 2001 afore a console of Scottish board was added a kangaroo cloister than any austere accomplishment to actuate answerability – even a Scottish appeals cloister bidding affair about a grave abortion of amends – but the Western columnist continues to call Megrahi, afterwards qualification, as the “Lockerbie bomber.”
It aswell was accustomed in the West’s account media to beam at the angle that Megrahi was absolutely adversity from avant-garde prostate blight back he hadn’t died as bound as some doctors anticipation he might. Afterwards Gaddafi’s administration fell, Megrahi’s ancestors arrive BBC and added account organizations to see Megrahi disturbing to breathe in his ailing bed.
His son, Khaled al-Megrahi, aswell connected to advance on his father’s innocence. “He believes and we apperceive that everybody will see the truth,” the adolescent Megrahi told the BBC. “I apperceive my ancestor is innocent and one day his chastity will appear out.”
Asked about the humans who died in the bombing, the son said: “We feel apologetic about all the humans who died. We wish to apperceive who did this bad thing. We wish to apperceive the accuracy as well.”
Convicted or Railroaded?
As added advice becomes accessible central Libya, the facts may assuredly be antiseptic about whether Gaddafi’s government did or did not accept a duke in the bombing over Lockerbie. However, so far, the break are that Megrahi may able-bodied accept been railroaded by the Scottish board who begin a additional Libyan actor innocent and were beneath political burden to captive anyone for the crime.
After Megrahi’s analytical conviction, the West imposed acrid bread-and-butter sanctions on Libya, accordant to lift them alone if Libya accustomed “responsibility” for the bombing and paid amends to the families of the 270 victims. To get rid of the backbreaking sanctions, Libya accustomed the accord although its admiral connected to advance that Libya had annihilation to do with the Lockerbie bombing.
However, amidst this year’s advertising attack in abutment of the Libyan rebels, none of this ambiguity was mentioned in the New York Times, the Washington Post or added arch U.S. account outlets. Gaddafi’s answerability for Lockerbie was artlessly declared as collapsed fact, abundant as the aforementioned account organizations accustomed apocryphal claims about Iraq’s WMD in the countdown to the 2003 aggression of that Arab country.
Similarly, there was bare U.S. media absorption accustomed to affirmation that eastern Libya, the affection of the anti-Gaddafi rebellion, was a axis for Islamic aggression with that arena bartering the a lot of per-capita militants angry U.S. troops in Iraq, generally beneath the banderole of al-Qaeda.
Instead, Gaddafi’s claims that he was aggressive Islamic terrorists in the Benghazi arena were broadly mocked or abandoned in the West. Even a address by analysts Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman for West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center got short-shrift.
In their report, “Al-Qaeda’s Adopted Fighters in Iraq,” Felter and Fishman analyzed al-Qaeda abstracts captured in 2007 assuming cadre annal of militants who flocked to Iraq for the war. The abstracts showed eastern Libya accouterment a hasty amount of suicide bombers who catholic to Iraq to annihilate American troops.
Felter and Fishman wrote that these alleged Sinjar Annal appear that while Saudis comprised the better amount of adopted fighters in Iraq, Libyans represented the better per-capita accidental by far. Those Libyans came overwhelmingly from towns and cities in the east.
“The all-inclusive majority of Libyan fighters that included their hometown in the Sinjar Annal resided in the country’s Northeast, decidedly the littoral cities of Darnah 60.2% (53) and Benghazi 23.9% (21),” Felter and Fishman wrote.
The authors added that Abu Layth al‐Libi, Emir of Libyan Islamic Angry Accumulation (LIFG), “reinforced Benghazi and Darnah’s accent to Libyan jihadis in his advertisement that LIFG had abutting al‐Qa’ida.”
Top Libyan Terrorists
Some important al-Qaeda leaders operating in Pakistan’s affiliated regions aswell are believed to accept appear from Libya. For instance, “Atiyah,” who was allegorical the anti-U.S. war action in Iraq, was articular as a Libyan called Atiyah Abd al-Rahman.
It was Atiyah who apprenticed a action of creating a quagmire for U.S. armament in Iraq, affairs time for al-Qaeda address to clean its backbone in Pakistan. “Prolonging the war [in Iraq] is in our interest,” Atiyah said in a letter that upbraided Jordanian agitator Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for his hasty and adventuresome accomplishments in Iraq.
After U.S. Special Armament dead al-Qaeda architect Osama bin Laden on May 2 in Pakistan, Atiyah became al-Qaeda’s additional in command until he himself was reportedly dead in a U.S. bombinate bang in August. [See Consortiumnews.com “Time Assuredly Ran Out for Atiyah.”]
However, to a lot of Americans relying on the above U.S. account media, little of this was known, as the Washington Post itself accustomed on Thursday. In an commodity on the acceleration of Islamists central the new ability anatomy in Libya, the Post wrote:
“Although it went abundantly disregarded during the insurgence that agitated Gaddafi endure month, Islamists were at the affection of the fight, abounding as insubordinate commanders.
“Now some are clashing with secularists aural the rebels’ Transitional National Council, bidding worries a part of some liberals that the Islamists — who still command the aggregate of fighters and weapons — could use their backbone to advance an even added ascendant role.”
On Thursday, the New York Times led the foreground page with a agnate article, advantaged “Islamists’ Growing Sway Raises Questions for Libya.” It began:
“In the arising post-Qaddafi Libya, the a lot of affecting baby-kisser may able-bodied be Ali Sallabi, who has no academic appellation but commands ample account as an Islamic academic and autonomous orator who was active in arch the accumulation uprising.
“The a lot of able aggressive baton is now Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the above baton of a awkward accumulation already believed to be accumbent with Al Qaeda.”
Belhaj was ahead the administrator of the Libyan Islamic Angry Group, which was associated with al-Qaeda in the past, maintained training bases in Afghanistan afore the 9/11 attacks, and was listed as a agitator alignment by the U.S. State Department.
Though Belhaj and the Libyan Islamic Angry Accumulation abjure accepted adherence to al-Qaeda, Belhaj was captured during George W. Bush’s post-9/11 “war on terror” and was agonizingly interrogated by the CIA at a “black site” bastille in Thailand afore accepting handed over to Gaddafi’s government which confined and – Belhaj claims – bent him.
The Times appear that “Belhaj has become so abundant an cabal afresh that he is gluttonous to bound Mahmoud Jibril, the American-trained economist who is the nominal prime abbot of the acting government, afterwards Mr. Jibril askance criticized the Islamists.”
The Times commodity by correspondents Rod Nordland and David D. Kirkpatrick aswell cited added contempo developments of growing Islamist access central the Libyan insubordinate movement:
“Islamist militias in Libya accept weapons and costs anon from adopted benefactors like Qatar; a Muslim Brotherhood figure, Abel al-Rajazk Abu Hajar, leads the Tripoli Municipal Governing Council, area Islamists are reportedly in the majority; in eastern Libya, there has been no resolution of the assassination in July of the baton of the insubordinate military, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, doubtable by some to be the plan of Islamists.”
It may be admirable that the Post and Times are assuredly giving austere absorption to this adventitious aftereffect of the NATO-backed “regime change” in Libya, but the actuality that these arch American newspapers abandoned the Islamist affair as able-bodied as doubts about Libya’s Lockerbie answerability – while the U.S. government was whipping up accessible abutment for addition war in the Muslim apple – raises questions about whether any acquaint were abstruse from Iraq.
Do these authority account outlets abide to see their role in such cases as artlessly accepting the American humans to band up abaft the latest war adjoin a Mideast “bad guy” – or will they anytime yield actively their journalistic assignment to arm the accessible with as abundant advice as possible?
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