Monday, October 31, 2011

Qadaffi Snuffed

The following article by Wayne Madsen echoes many of our own sentiments expressed in the post, Qadaffi Snuff, and it only further exemplifies to what extent into the "Hobbesian abyss" - bellum omnium contra omnes - the West has descended with these allegations that a surrender had been negotiated by members of the Qaddadfa tribe and that white flags were being flown from Sirte and from Qadaffi's convoy when it was attacked. We quote at length...

Strategic Culture Foundation: America’s Death Pornography Culture - Celebrating brutal deaths of Qaddafi and Saddam

As Qaddafi’s body, along with those of his son, Mo’tassim, and the former Libyan army commander, Abu Bakr Yunis, rotted in a meat freezer in Misrata – for the whole world to see -- more details emerged about Qaddafi’s last hours in Sirte. On October 19, at around 8:00 am in Sirte, a convoy of 70 vehicles departed the heavily-bombed out city, heading west. There were also Twitter messages coming out of Sirte reporting that several white flags of surrender were seen in the city at day break. However, a CIA Predator drone tracking the convoy passed its coordinates on to NATO. French and other NATO jets pounded the convoy, incinerating many of the drivers and passengers. Many of those killed were black Libyans. There are now reports of mass graves in Sirte containing the bodies of scores of Qaddafi supporters and fellow tribal members.

There have been some reports that a truce and a surrender by Qaddafi and his forces was worked out between some rebel leaders and Qaddafi’s entourage through the auspices of the Qaddadfa (the tribe to which Qaddafi belonged) tribal leaders in Sirte. After the convoy was on the highway heading west, with reported white flags from some of the vehicles, the motorcade, which was not engaging in fire with rebel or NATO forces, was set upon by NATO forces. Witnesses to the surrender and/or safe passage negotiations will be hard to come by, since one of those murdered in his home in Sirte by Libyan rebels was reportedly the chief of the Qaddadfa tribe who was part of the negotiations for surrender and safe passage.

Reports that Qaddafi and his group were trying to make a dash through the offensive lines around Sirte make no sense since the convoy left after sun up and in broad daylight, when white flags could clearly be seen by the belligerents, and the Twitter messages out of Sirte indicated that rebels, pro-Qaddafi forces, and neutral observers could all see the white flags. If Qaddafi wanted to make a break for it, he would have done so at night with headlights out.

One of the last things Qaddafi is heard asking his captors is “Do you know right from wrong?” If the rebels or NATO reneged on a promise of safe passage and ignored the universally-recognized white flag signifying truce and surrender, it would constitute a gross violation of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and would, therefore, be a war crime. Under the conventions, the white flag is protected as a sign that an approaching party intends to surrender or negotiate the terms of surrender. Those displaying a white flag may not fire or be fired upon.

If NATO and the rebels violated the white flag in Sirte, it would represent one of the first major violations of a practice that began with the Eastern Han dynasty in China in the year 25, and was recognized by the Roman Empire, armies during the Middle Ages, and every major and minor nation since. A violation by NATO of the flag of truce would represent a flagrant return to barbarism by the “collective defensive” organization.

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Madsen does not produce the specific Twitter feeds, and such should not of themselves be considered conclusive - after all, it was the unsubstantiated "tweets" out of Paris alleging a Qadaffi massacre of protesters that got this campaign rolling in the first place. However, we did come across this tweet from the otherwise NATO-subservient Ian Pannell of the BBC that would suggest that non-recognition of the white flag of surrender was among the rules of engagement of the NTC forces...

@iPannellbbc: Families from #Sirte waving white flag turned back on the road to #Misrata by rebels under orders. Wont b allowed thru 'til Sat.
1 Sep via web


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Update





A November 1 report in the Independent indicates that an agreement had been reached to have Qadaffi and others in his convoy spirited out of the country, but that he along with his rescuers were double crossed...

'Wonga Coup' mercenaries fixed Gaddafi's doomed last flight

Kim Sengupta reveals an amazing escape plan that ended in the dictator's death – and in claims of treachery

An international operation to rescue Muammar Gaddafi from his besieged last refuge involved mercenaries who had taken part in the notorious "Wonga Coup" led by former SAS officer Simon Mann, The Independent has learnt.

Crause Steyl, a pilot and one-time business partner of Sir Mark Thatcher, had taken part, along with the former prime minister's son, in the failed attempt to overthrow the dictator of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. He was asked, just after the Libyan dictator's death, to fly stranded soldiers of fortune out of a mission "which had gone badly wrong". (He declined to help.)

The private force of South Africans are said to have undertaken the task of getting Gaddafi out of the country via the convoy in the belief it had the backing of the Western powers. The men were recruited, it is claimed, by a woman of British background – whose name cannot currently be published for legal reasons – living in Kenya and working on behalf of a company in London.

However, the extraction of Gaddafi ended in ferocious violence and confusion when the convoy carrying him out of Sirte, his birthplace where he made his final stand, drove into an ambush with sustained air strikes from French warplanes and ground attacks from rebel fighters. The venture came to a bloody end, with Gaddafi tortured and killed, and some of the South Africans with him reported killed, injured and captured. This has led to recriminations and accusations of betrayal. At least some of those taking part believe that the hidden aim of those who had hired them was not to save the former Libyan leader but to deliver him into the hands of his enemies...

Danie Odendaal, one of the fighters, claimed he was with Gaddafi when the convoy was attacked. He has told South African media that three groups of South Africans were flown in to Libya via Dubai and Cairo to help the Gaddafi family under a deal done with Nato.

The plan, he said, was initially to take Gaddafi to Niger. "We all believed they [certain Western countries] wanted him out of Libya. But then Nato attacked. It was a gruesome, gruesome orgy, I think we were sold out"...


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Here are a few of the more plausible reasons why he needed not only to be ousted, but murdered...

Reuters (Jan 21 2009): Gaddafi says looking at oil firm nationalization

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Wednesday his country and other oil exporters were looking into nationalizing foreign firms due to low oil prices and suggested Tripoli might not stick to OPEC production quotas...

GoldStockBull (May 6 2011): Invasion of Libya was About Gaddafi's Plan to Introduce Gold Dinar

Under the guise of “protecting civilians,” the United States led NATO into Libya and is attempting to assassinate the Libyan leader. Of course, Libya happens to be the largest oil producer in Africa, but many do not realize that Gaddafi was planning to introduce the gold dinar, a single African currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar and allow African nations to share the wealth...

Simply put, if oil-rich nations begin trading in something other than dollars it will significantly reduce demand for dollars and threaten the dollar’s role as world reserve currency. Many experts belief this would lead to the quick death of the fiat greenback, which is now backed by nothing but faith in a government that is running an annual budget deficit of over $1.5 TRILLION...


GR Reporter (10 June 2010): Route of Solar Energy from Sahara to Europe will Pass through Greece

Memorandum of economic cooperation between Greece and Libya was signed by the Prime Minister George Papandreou and Muammar Gaddafi during a meeting in the tent of the Libyan leader in Tripoli.

Muammar Gaddafi expressed his willingness Libya and Greece to cooperate in all areas, and the Prime Minister al-Mahmoudi proposed an amount of the 200 billion dollars available to the Government of Libya for investments to be invested in Greece...

Friday, October 21, 2011

Qadaffi Snuff

The name of this web log is WxxxNews. As such, one might expect that this would be the place to go for video footage of the execution of Muammar al-Qadaffi. Sorry. Tough luck. We won't go there. Read the by-line for this site: "Web log editions shall be soft-core at best..." The video that has been issuing out of every news outlet with celebratory aplomb, from the Beeb to Fox, is of the sort that individuals found in personal possession of such would be facing criminal charges in most jurisdictions. It is a snuff film, the eagerness with which it is aired by media giants only serves to illustrate most sadly the demise of those Western values - the Rule of Law, due process, injunctions against cruel and humiliating punishment - that such organizations purport to represent. That WxxxNews is one speaking out for common decency attests how deep into the Hobbesian abyss our "civilization" has fallen. Not since the filmed, public execution by hanging of Benito Mussolini in 1945, has such a display of bestial, necrophiliac savagery been displayed. Actually, the images of Qadaffi go beyond those of Mussolini, for now we have the man stripped naked before the fatal shots are fired, and then his bloody corpse laid out for a photo-journalistic necro-feast. We will not partake in this sacrament of evil.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

First, the problem...

ArXiv: The network of global corporate control

Then the reaction... Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street movement is providing arenas for the expression of general angst against the oligarchs that can no longer denied or obfuscated by politicians and media. Having reached this point, however, it should come as no surprise that many of the 1% are "sympathizing" with the angst of the 99% - everyone from George Soros to Ben and Jerry to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to Viceroy Obama. They want the 99% to know that they are every bit as frustrated about the situation, even though their tax returns might indicate incomes of the upper one percentile, such as Soros and B. & J., or if they merely serve as lackeys to the former, as with Bernanke and Obama.

Now that the US is having its own "Arab Spring," the power grab is on. The crisis has got its reaction, and so everyone with an agenda is jumping into the game in an attempt to redirect the focus onto their solution. Whether its Michael Moore (another one percenter) calling for the end of capitalism or Alex Jones pushing to end the Fed, each faction will try to milk this for all its worth.

As the pitch is made by the original #Occupiers, as read by Keith Olbermann, it seems reasonable enough to the average 99 percenter...

CurrentTV: First Collective Statement of Occupy Wall Street

...which is not too much of a departure from the grievances expressed by, say, the original American revolutionaries. Yet, one thing we have noted among many on the contemporary left; they are disturbingly dismissive of basic constitutional principals - to a document regarded by them as out-dated, and as little more than a fetish to the "tea-baggers" (albeit a valid observation). There are exceptions: for instance Glenn Greenwald might be described as a constitutionally grounded progressive; but when one considers the general lack of interest from the left in the unilateral executive assassination of American citizens Awlaki and Khan (when even anti-Muslim stalwarts on the right such as Michael Savage and Glenn Beck decried it), it becomes apparent that there is a very disconcerting phenomenon occurring on the left side of the American body politic.

Further evidence of this phenomenon...

Rense: Has 'Occupy Wall Street' Already Been Controlled?

PrisonPlanet: 'Occupy' Agitators Sabotage First Amendment

It is as if the Obama-zombies of three years ago, having been abandoned by their Dada Doc, are now roaming the nation leaderless, though they remain zonked out in a zombie state.

But are they entirely leaderless?

Makow (Richard Evans): Occupy Wall Street Is COINTELPRO

Global Research (David Walsh): From Tunisia to "Occupy Wall Street": Who is the AFL/CIO's Stuart Applebaum?

Our advice: be very wary of those that purport to provide a channel for the general anger. When they try to drown out thought process with con/sense/us chanting and when they talk about eliminating property because the super-rich have too much, remember that they would take away your property, even though you think you have not too much, and they will stifle your liberty by conning your senses, and, indeed, if it would serve the "greater good," they could take your life.

So beware the "solution"...

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Headlines of note for September 2011...

A disturbing precedent...

Empire Burlesque: Absence of Evidence - The Progressive Policy of Imperial Murder

...which occurred on September 30, and which happened to be the date in 1630 that the first Englishman was executed in North America. John Billington was hanged after he was "both by grand and petty jury found guilty of wilful murder, by plain and notorious evidence..." Now that name, John Billington, rings a bell... It happens to be the name that the former Senator and Governor of Florida, Bob Graham, chose for a character bearing a striking resemblance to himself in his "factional" novel Keys to the Kingdom. However, Mr. Billington is assassinated early on in the novel, as he is about to disclose some of the hidden secrets uncovered in his congressional 9/11 investigations.

We can only speculate as to what hidden secrets of 9/11 Mr. Awlaki must have harbored, seeing as he had served as imam to the same two 9/11 hijackers, Al Hazmi and Al Mihdhar, that feature prominently in Graham's novel, and who have otherwise been in the news lately concerning NSA and CIA reconnaissance of their whereabouts in the months preceding 9/11. Moreover, Mr. Awlaki, if he had been given the opportunity to present "plain and notorious evidence" before a jury for the crimes of which he was never formally charged, might have had something to say about being an invited dinner guest at the Pentagon just months after 9/11, in spite of his contacts with Al Hazmi and Al Mihdhar.

So, as it happens, the assassination of Anwar Al Awlaki bears, in certain respects, intriguing parallels to the assassination of the "John Billington" of Senator Graham's "faction".

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You'd think business would be booming, but BAE Systems wants to eliminate 3,000 jobs in Britain...

Le Monde: BAE Systems veut supprimer 3 000 emplois en Grande-Bretagne

Le géant britannique de la défense BAE Systems a annoncé mardi 27 septembre son intention de supprimer près de 3 000 emplois en Grande-Bretagne en raison notamment de la baisse des budgets de la défense en Europe, qui handicape l'avion de combat Eurofighter.

Le groupe "doit maintenir sa compétitivité", a expliqué son directeur général Ian King, dans un communiqué. "Nos clients font face à une pression énorme sur leurs budgets de défense", a-t-il précisé.

La décision concerne notamment l'activité aéronautique du groupe, à cause du ralentissement des cadences de production de l'Eurofighter, fabriqué par BAE Systems aux côtés de l'européen EADS et de l'italien Finmeccanica. De même, la production de l'avion américain F-35, à laquelle participe le groupe britannique, ne sera pas aussi importante que prévu initialement. Les sites les plus touchés sont dans le nord-est de l'Angleterre : 899 emplois à Brough, 843 à Warton et Preston, et 565 à Samlesbury.

Le groupe, qui emploie quelque 39 000 personnes sur une cinquantaine de sites au Royaume-Uni, avait déjà annoncé à la fin de l'année dernière la suppression de près de 1 400 emplois dans le pays, après l'arrêt de plusieurs contrats liés aux coupes budgétaires décidées par le gouvernement britannique. A l'exception d'une dizaine de postes, les sites de BAE Systems à l'étranger (près de 60 000 emplois) ne sont pas concernés par cette annonce.

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Arab spring blooms with atrocity exhibitions...

LIBYE038: Le racisme des rebelles libyens contre les africains de peau noir

AFRO: Walter Fauntroy, Feared Dead in Libya, Returns Home—Guess Who He Saw Doing the Killing

In an interview inside his Northwest D.C. home last week, the noted civil rights leader, told the Afro that he watched French and Danish troops storm small villages late at night beheading, maiming and killing rebels and loyalists to show them who was in control.

McClatchy: Empty village raises concerns about fate of black Libyans

Land Destroyer: Genocide, rebel infighting, failed offensives mark 3 weeks after NATO's "victory" in Libya

With seeds sown for future chaos...

Christian Science Monitor: The deadly dilemma of Libya's missing weapons

Haaretz: U.S. told Egypt it must rescue Israeli embassy workers or suffer 'consequences,' sources say

AP: Israel deploys drones over Egyptian border

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Financial World War is waged with debt not bombs; yet the theatre of conflict retains similar dynamics of the last World War...

Telegraph (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard): Germany and Greece flirt with mutual assured destruction

Germany’s EU commissioner Günther Oettinger said Europe should send blue helmets to take control of Greek tax collection and liquidate state assets. They had better be well armed. The headlines in the Greek press have been "Unconditional Capitulation", and "Terrorization of Greeks", and even “Fourth Reich”.

And there's no ruling out this war going hot if Greece should leave the eurozone...

Forbes: Merkel defends eurozone bailout fund

Merkel told parliament Wednesday after the decision that the euro meant more to Europe than just a common monetary zone, noting that no countries with a shared currency had ever gone to war with one another.

"The euro is the guarantor of a unified Europe," she told lawmakers. "If the euro collapses, Europe collapses."


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Meanwhile, the war comes to Wall Street...

Occupy Wall Street: Greetings from Occupied Wall Street

The Republican Party has been in a bit of a bind lately; it seems the only candidate that generates any kind of enthusiasm from voters (especially the younger voters) is the one that the neo-con establishment would least like to see as their nominee: Ron Paul. So they have been trotting out one "savior" after another, from Michelle "Napolean in pettycoats" Bachmann to Rick "niggerhead" Perry to Hermann "our candidate is blacker than your candidate" Cain to Chris "fat fuck" Christie. Our guess is that it's only a matter of time before they recruit... TONY BALONEY FOR PRESIDENT!

Cryptome: Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna Notorious Protestor Abuser

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Startling allegations over what was really going on at Fukushima Daiichi...

Rense: Proof Of Fukushima Weapons Program Rests On A Pile Of Manure

And, Wayne Madsen traces Japan's alleged nuclear program to an Israeli run nuclear smuggling network, the discovery of one node of which led to the killing of a CIA contractor, Roland Carnaby, in April, 2008. It is a rather involved story; here are some of its central points...

WMR: Israel's nuclear smuggling network was key element in Carnaby murder in Houston

Israel, working with deeply-embedded intelligence moles in the United States, including within the U.S. government and "off-the-books" intelligence front companies, has been pilfering spent U.S. nuclear fuel from American nuclear arms caches at a phenomenal rate over the last several years. U.S. and foreign intelligence sources have confirmed that much of the nuclear fuel has been shipped to Israel and other locations via the port of Houston...

One individual who had the port of Houston under close scrutiny was CIA contractor/informant/source Roland "Tony" Carnaby. Carnaby had set up a number of video surveillance cameras at the port of Houston and routinely uploaded the stored videos from the camera units to his Macintosh computer. WMR has learned from intelligence sources that Carnaby possessed a major secret about the smuggling operation: much of the nuclear material being shipped through Houston by Israel, more than its needs, was being re-sold by Israel on the international black market...

One of the countries that received re-sold American plutonium fuel from Israel was Japan. However, the Japanese soon discovered that the plutonium for which they were paying the Israelis top dollar was too old and provided only short-life usable nuclear weapons. Japan decided to go it alone on their nuclear weapons development but not before they planned to blow the whistle on the Israeli and American smuggling operation to the International Atonic Energy Agency (IAEA). Before the Japanese could act, the super-quake struck Japan, along with the devastating tsunami. At that point in time, Israel and the Americans programmed their Stuxnet computer virus to trigger the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima, the major site for Japan's nuclear weapons development program. Stuxnet, developed to disrupt Iran's nuclear program, is also effective against the nuclear power generation systems of other nations using standard supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software, including the plutonium MOX fuel processing operations at Fukushima. Stuxnet can be used to blackmail recipients of the smuggled plutonium material, including MOX fuel, into silence. The Fukushima disaster destroyed physical evidence of the Israeli smuggling operation to Japan. However, Japanese intelligence possesses other evidence of the Israeli smuggling operations...

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Other updates...

FloridaOilSpillLaw: New oil leaking in Gulf “could be impossible to stop” — Vent would increase in size over time due to highly pressurised reservoir

Daily Mail: 'Angel is next' - The terrifying message pilot of Air Force One got as he flew President Bush on 9/11

Miami Herald: Link to 9/11 hijackers found in Sarasota

Boiling Frogs Post: Confirmed Identity of the CIA Official behind 9/11, Rendition & Torture Cases is Revealed

A tentative retraction of the 'Reagan killed Qadaffi's one year old daughter' charge...

Irish Times: Evidence suggests daughter did not die in 1986 bombing as claimed

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Porno apocalypse...


CBS-LA: LA Porn Studio Begins Construction On ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ Underground Bunker

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And finally, as a general rule, Wxxx News has avoided a species of news reporting that employs question-marks in the headlines, so indicating that all that is being offered in a piece is speculation as to what might have happened or to what could happen. We think that the reader would prefer to focus on what did happen or is happening.

Nevertheless, perhaps there is a place for such reveries. And so we have made one... Question-mark headlines is the place to go for headlines that contain question-marks.