Libyan Crisis: Hidden motives behind coalition

 Adapted From : Africa news

The Western coalition involved in the military offensive in Libya have continued their air strikes despite calls by a section of the international community for an immediate ceasefire and the opening of negotiations between the parties involved in the crisis. With the backing of the United States, France, United Kingdom and Spain, it has now become obvious that the Western powers are pursuing a hidden agenda in their attempt to decimate Libya under the cover of the UN Resolution 1973. Analysts say the coalition forces have deliberately slanted the UN resolution to unleash mass destruction, not only on Libyan arsenals, but also the country’s entire economic infrastructure.

The resolution, for which 10 countries voted in favor, zero against, and five abstentions, authorizes member states “to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamhariya, including Benghazi, while excluding an occupation force.” There are indications that although the insurgents, whom France has vowed to enthrone in Libya, may not understand the challenges they will have to face, once they come to power. They will have to preserve the independence of the country and this will work against 'the hidden agenda' and spark a future attack even with the insurgents in power. Promises of financial support to enable them rebuild Libya may be pouring in from the Western powers, analysts say this cannot come without the insurgents paying 'a price for it'. They say that France, in the forefront of attempts to destroy Libya, should draw a lesson from the post-war race for Iraqi oil during which the Washington shoved Paris aside. On Libya, 'France threw caution to the wind', catching the European Union unawares, exploiting the naivety of the Arab League and brushing aside, with disdain, concerns expressed by the African Union with its 'pioneering' action over Tripoli and other Libyan cities.

Libyan oil, one of the most refined in the world, is the main motivation behind the action of the Western powers.
Its economic independence has long made even the most powerful Western country jealous. It is therefore not surprising that a very clear text of the UN Resolution (which said 'excluding an occupation force'), could be misinterpreted to suit their purpose. Forecasters say France plans to propose, to its new leaders, the establishment of a “Marshall Plan” to rebuild 'Libya after Gadhafi'. Expectedly, the Western media are backing this venture, using phrases like “Africa once again fails to enter History” or “We know what this AU panel is capable of” in their one-sided write ups on the real situation in Libya. The truth about the real motivation behind the actions in Libya could manifest itself, thanks to the digital era, in the social media of facebook, Twitters and Wikileaks. Declarations of “Gadhafi must step down“, “Kadhafi has lost legitimacy”, by Washington and Paris, do not conform with the basic democratic rules which stipulate that no country has the right to determine what happens in another country.

Open Letter to President of USA and Prime Minister of India

Jeff Knaebel- 72, Recently died in India

From: Jeff Knaebel, Moral Sovereign - January 2011 


Subject: My Final Satyagraha for Nonviolence and Freedom

For a long time the Government of the USA (“USG”) has been the world's leading merchant of death and destruction.  Throughout my entire lifetime of 72 years the USG has been committing horrible crimes against humanity and all life. The sustained systematic psychopathic practices of the USG have launched humanity on a path to extinction.  Mahatma Gandhi said upon the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that unless we adopted a nonviolent way of life, it spelled the suicide of the human species.  Daily he is being proven correct.

As a citizen-slave of the USG I have been coerced to pay taxes which are then employed in bloody wars of aggression and coercive international economic practices which exploit weaker peoples whose lives, cultures, and ecologies are destroyed in the process.  While dwelling in the land of my birth I was not permitted to withdraw from citizenship and the concomitant complicity in mass murder which USG citizenship entailed.  Therefore I chose to come to India, and eventually decided to renounce my USG citizenship, and to destroy my United States passport and other government identity documents at the Gandhi Samadhi, Rajghat, New Delhi on 19 June 2009.

I acted in protest of government denial of my right to exist as a natural human living with respect for all life and answering to my own conscience.  By requirement of identification and travel documents and permits both the USG and the Government of India (“GOI”) mark me as a piece of property to be regulated and controlled as the human equivalent of a dog on a leash.  By my self-directed death I demonstrate my refusal to be the slave of either government.

To the Prime Minister of India (GOI), I refer the attached letter of 20 October 2010 from the General Counsel of The World Service Authority, which cites the violations by GOI of my human rights under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and International Law.

The GOI, acting through its police and the orders of its Supreme Court, has prohibited my freedom of movement and has denied me access to shelter pursuant to threat of FIR against any person who would host me.  In thus pronouncing me to be an illegal human being, the GOI has denied my right to exist.  A person cannot survive without freedom of movement and shelter.

My petition for Statelessness, denied by your Supreme Court, was based upon the clear fact that to change citizenship would only be to change the name of my slave master, for the GOI engages in many life-destroying and murderous actions against its own citizens, and also seeks "Strategic Partnership" with the war criminal USG.

By my death I send my answer to the rulers of the Corporate State who value property and profit more than human life and the life of Earth herself.  In refusing to live as a slave I also extend to both of you my metta-karuna (compassion and loving-kindness), for if one examines deeply he will find that the corporate master is more tightly bound than the slave, for the slaves are powerless to come out of it, while the Powers That Be have free will that they fail to exercise because of addictive enslavement to power.  For the corporate rulers, the power to manipulate and control other people has become an end in itself.  They will no longer control me. 

My wish for you is that you come to see the intrinsic evil of the governments which you head, and resign from your official positions, understanding that the people need no institutionally imposed 'leaders.'

My campaign of Satyagraha has made it clear for all to see that under law and practice of both USG and GOI, a person striving for nonviolence at even the most rudimentary levels of non-support of killing is denied by law the right to exist.  It is not by the laws of the Corporate State that humanity will find peace and justice, for such law is conceived in the womb of greed and implemented through the violence of power.

I give my life to the cause of nonviolence.  I wish not to live under coercion to support the cruel inhumanity of either of your governments.  I wish not to live under control of governments who possess neither the wisdom, nor the virtue, nor the right to exercise power over human life.

Only through fellow-feeling and loving-kindness can mankind survive on our small and crowded planet. We must share this Earth equally and with respect among all.  I have acted out of love to try to send a warning to my fellowmen, and I send to each of you my sincere feelings of kindness and my prayers for your peace, happiness and harmony.

May peace and goodwill prevail among all men. May you both abide in well-being,

 Signed - Jeff Knaebel 

Busy in Exam

dear all,

i know you are following my blog and thinking why he is not uploading any articles?
i am very much busy these days for the prepration of exams. Its starting from the day after tomorrow. so most probably i will be away from the internete and bloging.

appology for that

regards,

ramesh

The only option

Ashe Brooks-cook

It has been called many names—reservation, special privilege, quotas, affirmative action, etc.—but whatever you’d like to call it, this concept is currently in deep debate amongst academics and politicians of Nepal.
Depending on who you are the perception of reservation is seen as either the eliminator of individual rights or the great equaliser of the people. Those in congruence with the ruling elite of Nepal, regardless of caste or ethnicity, are for the most part against the idea of reservation. Opponents argue that it infringes on the rights of individuals and therefore is counterproductive. Proponents of reservation believe that reservation is a way of bridging the gap of inequality between the have and the haves not’s, as well as providing an outlet toward bringing about democracy for a country that craves it with such intensity.
Reservation has the potential to benefit more than half of the population of Nepal mainly Dalits at 14.99 percent, indigenous groups at 36.31 percent and women at 52 percent of the population, and by benefiting these groups it will undoubtedly benefit Nepal as a whole. Reservation is an endeavour that would allow individuals access to opportunities that they otherwise would never have had based solely on a criteria measured by their genetics. These individuals would have right of entry in sectors such as education, civil service, government, the Army and most importantly a chance at a better life. People shouldn’t be questioning the legitimacy of reservation, what they should be doing is questioning why it has not been implemented sooner.
I recently encountered first hand the fear that will stifle Nepal’s nascent modernity at a conference on Dalit issues last month. During a break I spoke to a participant who commented that since the implementation of reservation in Nepal that certain castes were actually being turned down from opportunities over less qualified applicants due to their ethnicity. What I thought was interesting about the statement was that for one, it was coming from a Brahmin who had just received a Fulbright scholarship to study and live in the United States. Secondly, that she automatically assumed that those persons who are getting job opportunities over other castes were undoubtedly less qualified, and therefore were receiving these positions only due to their ethnicity and not because of their merit. The concept of merit is a structuralised concept, created by the elite to keep others out. What they fail to realise is that ethnic preferences in sectors enhance the experience not only of minority students but of elites, too.
There is no denying the fact that there is a need for reservation in Nepal. Statistics overwhelmingly show that Nepal has been dominated by a small minority in any and all sectors, both public and private, historically as well as currently. For example Brahmin/Chhetri make up 88.8 percent of the Supreme Court justices, 68.4 percent of ministers, the mass majority of majors and above ranks in the Army, 70.9 percent of the Nepali Congress, 87.5 percent of CPN-UML and so on, but only consist of 30.89 percent of the total population in Nepal.

Since reservation in Nepal is so new there is not much empirical data on whether or not it has made any difference or what the implications of it will be with regards to the future. But what I can derive based upon my own research in Nepal and my observations of reservation in other countries is that although controversial, reservation can and has been in many areas highly beneficial. As an African American I know all too well the repercussions of oppression and the benefits as well as controversies that affirmative action has caused in my country.
Affirmative action was first established in the United States in 1961 as an executive order. Many people in the United States were greatly affected by this order but if not for affirmative action, if not for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or even the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862, my race would potentially still be stuck in a past filled with injustice and inferiority with even greater limited opportunities to education and jobs. I personally would still be made to drink out of a coloureds only water fountain, or still would not be able to vote, or even still be an enslaved person as others that have come before me have faced. As a result of the implementation of affirmative action in the US the percentage of African Americans began to increase in higher education, job placement, as well as the middle class.
Prominent American figures whose advancement were in part the result of affirmative action are Sonia Sotomayor (Princeton, Yale), Barack and Michelle Obama (Columbia, Princeton, Harvard), and Eric Holder (Columbia) - all of whom who have advocated for the importance of considering ethnicity in judicial selection, hiring and admission. Bill Gates, another prominent American figure, has acknowledged the need for affirmative action by creating the Gates Millennium Scholars programme. This programme grants scholarships for 1,000 minority students to attend college each year for the next 20 years.
I have heard many times during my stay in Nepal of a concept of a “New Nepal” and how Nepal has transcended from a Nepal of exclusiveness and oppression to that of inclusion and democracy. It is not truly possible for Nepal to become a “New Nepal” if only a small percentage of Nepalis are benefiting from this
so-called newness. Nearly 250 years of elite rule does not change overnight, but in order to effect true change and come to a point of equality, certain provisions need to be made and various forms of dominance by particular ethnic groups needs to be neutralised. The only way to do this in a pace quicker than the 250 years that it took to get there is to implement reservation as an amendment to the constitution as well as put into practice protocols that would ensure that it would be followed. It is true that eventually these issues will work themselves out, the bridge of equality in Nepal will eventually be built, domination by elite ethnicities will eventually quell, but until then reservation is the only answer.
Brooks-Cook is a graduate student at The New School University, New York. He recently spent the summer in Nepal researching contemporary Nepali politics
 THE KATHMANDU POST

No ‘graceful exit’

In his book, The Promise, about President Obama’s first year in office, Jonathan Alter describes a brief conversation between the president and Vice President Jœ Biden that took place last November at the end of Obama’s long deliberation about what to do in Afghanistan. Biden asked whether the new policy of beginning a significant withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2011 was a direct presidential order that could not be countermanded by the military. The president said yes. The two men were on their way to a meeting in the Oval Office with members of the Pentagon brass who would be tasked with carrying out Obama’s orders. Among those at the meeting was Gen. David Petraeus, then the chief of the United States Central Command, which included oversight of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to Alter, the president said to General Petraeus: “David, tell me now. I want you to be honest with me. You can do this in 18 months?” Petraeus replied: “Sir, I’m confident we can train and hand over to the A.N.A. [Afghan National Army] in that time frame.” The president went on: “If you can’t do the things you say you can in 18 months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?” “Yes, sir, in agreement,” said General Petraeus. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also at the meeting, and he added his own crisp, “Yes, sir.” That was then. The brass was just blowing smoke, telling the commander in chief whatever it was that he wanted to hear. Over the past several days, at meetings with one news media outlet after another, General Petraeus has been singing a decidedly different song. The lead headline in The Times on Monday said: General Opposes a Rapid Pullout in Afghanistan. Having taken over command of US forces in Afghanistan after the ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Petraeus is now saying he did not take that job in order to preside over a “graceful exit.” His goal now appears to be to rally public opinion against the very orders that President Obama insisted, as he told Jœ Biden, could not be countermanded. Who’s in charge here? The truth is that we have no idea how the president really feels about the deadline he imposed for beginning a troop withdrawal. It always seemed peculiar to telegraph the start of a troop pullout while fighting (in this case, escalating) a war. And Obama has always been careful to ratchet up the ambiguity quotient by saying the start of any withdrawal would depend on conditions on the ground. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that conditions on the ground are awful, so it looks as though we’re going to be there for a long, long while. This is a terrible thing to contemplate because in addition to the human toll (nearly half of all the American troop deaths in Afghanistan have occurred since Obama took office), the war is a giant roadblock in the way of efforts to deal effectively with deteriorating economic and social conditions here in the United States. Look around at the economy, the public school system, the federal budget deficits, the fiscal conditions plaguing America’s state and local governments. We are giving short shrift to all of these problems and more while pouring staggering amounts of money (the rate is now scores of billions of dollars a year) into a treacherous, unforgiving and hopelessly corrupt sinkhole in Afghanistan. (I stand in awe of the heights of hypocrisy scaled by conservative politicians and strategists who demand that budget deficits be brought under control while cheering the escalation in Afghanistan and calling for ever more tax cuts here at home.) The reason you hear so little about Lyndon Johnson nowadays despite his stupendous achievements— Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965—is that Vietnam laid his reputation low. Johnson’s war on poverty was derailed by Vietnam, and it was Vietnam that tragically split the Democratic Party and opened the door to the antiwar candidacies of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. The ultimate beneficiaries, of course, were Richard Nixon and the Republicans. President Obama dœs not buy the comparison of Afghanistan to Vietnam, and he has a point when he says that the US was not attacked from Vietnam. But Sept. 11, 2001, was nearly a decade ago, and the war in Afghanistan was hopelessly bungled by the Bush crowd. There is no upside to Obama’s escalation of this world-class fiasco. We will never build a stable, flourishing society in Afghanistan. What we desperately need is a campaign of nation-building to counteract the growing instability and deterioration in the United States.

By Bob Herbert

The New York Times ( Repritend by The Kathmandu Post)