Osama, Obama Hussein in Operation Odyssey

THE West has turned a deaf ear to claims by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi that the so-called protests in Libya are in fact not protests from the people of Libya, but a complex opportunistic insurrection by an al-Qaeda affiliated group in Benghazi - an armed insurrection riding on the popularity of the uprisings that toppled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt. Gaddafi has argued that while the people of Tunisia and Egypt were protesting for power just like those of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the people of Libya cannot possibly protest for power because power resides with the people in Libya - of course through the Libyan Revolution's 1977-established Revolutionary Committees.
Gaddafi argues that it was al-Qaeda that first claimed Libya was in protest, building the positions that were eagerly adopted by mainstream Western media, which never bothered to verify the happenings on the ground.
He further argues that the Western media hype was regarded as fact by the United Nations and by many Western countries, with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon even admitting that the world body was relying on media reports on its opinion on Libya.
Based on these media reports resolution 1970 was adopted on February 26 and it established a sanctions regime on Libya, especially because of the government crackdown on the February 15 insurrection in Benghazi.
Gaddafi criticised resolution 1970 as invalid and called for its renunciation. He invited the AU, UN, the Arab League and the West to come and investigate what was happening in Libya.
Gaddafi claimed that the so-called protests were no more than ordinary people being held "hostages of the situation" - being held to ransom by armed rebels in Benghazi; rebels who were affiliated to and inspired by al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Gaddafi's call for the nullification of resolution 1970 was met by a recalling of that resolution, not for the purposes of investigating the situation in Libya as he had proposed, but for the crude resolve to reinforce it with a more ruthless resolution 1973, this time declaring a "no-fly zone" over Libya and calling for "all measures necessary" in stopping the Libyan government from killing its own civilians. Resolution 1973 was voted for by 10 members of the 15-member UN Security Council, three of which were African countries, namely South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon, while five countries abstained including Russia and China.
South Africa now regrets the vote and blames the West for misinterpreting the resolution.
This resolution was implemented in hours by Western powers, with France's Nicolas Sarkozy showing an extraordinary keenness to bring Gaddafi into military submission.
Resolution 1973 gave birth to Operation Odyssey Dawn, a ruthless mass-murdering and hyper-destructive campaign only comparable to the aerial bombings seen last during the 1992 Gulf War.
Benghazi is central to resolution 1973, and the rebels from that town are the ones often referred to as the "protesters", regardless of the fact that they have sophisticated anti-air missiles and commandeered military jets in their possession, among a whole lot of other sophisticated weaponry.
Abdel-Hakin al-Hasidi is the Libyan rebel leader and he has been quoted by the The Telegraph as saying the Jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Gaddafi's regime.
According to The Telegraph's Praveen Swami and Nick Squires, al-Hasidi admitted that he had earlier fought against Western invasion in Afghanistan.
The two referred to an interview al-Hasidi had with an Italian newspaper, II Sole 24 Ore, where al-Hasidi admitted that he recruited "around 25" men from Darnah, his home town in eastern Libya, to fight against coalition troops in Iraq.
Some of these men, he said, "today are on the frontlines in Adjabiya." Al-Hasidi said his troops "are patriots and good Muslims", not terrorists. He added, "Members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader."
Chad's President Idriss Derby Itno has said al-Qaeda has managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface to air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries."
By his own admission al-Hasidi earlier fought against the Western invaders in Afghanistan, the same invaders bombing Libya today with reckless abandon. He was then "captured in 2002 in Peswar, in Pakistan."
Later, he was handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.
Today he is an ally of his former captors.
British and US government sources have said al-Hasidi has always been a member of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks in Darnah and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.
The LIFG is listed among terrorist groups in both the UK and the US, regardless of current reality that the group is the strongest internal ally of the West in its aerial bombardment campaign over Libya.
Gerald A Perreira wrote an incisive opinion piece on Libya which was published by Global Research on March 25.
He observed that the Gulf War-style military might being displayed by Western powers through Operation Odyssey Dawn is premised on a "real and illegal goal" of effecting regime change in Libya.
Clearly, resolution 1973 does not provide any legal basis for any regime change moves, much as it allows the West a beginning point for such a sinister move. Replay the Gulf War and the plan behind Operation Odyssey Dawn is very clear: disable Libya's defence ability and simultaneously arm and strengthen the reactionary conglomerate of rebel forces in Benghazi.
The hope is that the al-Qaeda rag-tag bunch led by al-Hasidi will rock back, once and for all, the Libyan Revolution and its gains made over the 42 years, Gaddafi has presided over this revolution.
What is happening in Libya is a continuation of historical stalemates.
The former slave-holding and colonial powers are having another go at Gaddafi.
Obama and his sidekicks from France, the UK, Spain and other European lackeys are reviving feuds that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher failed to win. In 1986, the US unfoundedly accused Libya of bombing a discotheque in Berlin.
Based on this accusation, Reagan openly attempted to assassinate Gaddafi by bombing his residence at Bab al-Azizia in Tripoli.
The next move was the accusation against Libya over the 1988 Pan Am Lockerbie bombing, what became a good excuse for initiating hard-hitting economic sanctions against Libya, in order to cripple it economically, or to make its economy scream, borrowing the language from the US State Department.
British intelligence employed the services of an al-Qaeda cell inside Libya in 1996, according to renegade MI5 former operative David Shayler. They paid the Osama bin Laden-led group $100 000 so they could assassinate Gaddafi. The group was amateurish and they planted a bomb under a wrong car, detonating it, only to kill several civilians in Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown.
Shayler revealed that while he was working on the MI5 Libya desk in the mid-nineties, British secret services personnel collaborated with the LIFG, itself an affiliate to bin Laden's al-Qaeda, and more importantly, itself led by bin Laden's trusted lieutenant.
Gaddafi and his Libyan Revolution were the first authority ever to issue a warrant of arrest for Osama bin Laden in 1998.
Britain dismissed the warrant and so did the US. For Britain, Libya was interfering with a close ally.
The two Western imperial powers only woke up after bin Laden's men bombed US Embassies in East Africa.
For many years the Libyan government warned the world about the very serious threat posed by al-Qaeda miscreants.
According to Shayler, Western intelligence turned a deaf ear to Libya's warnings because they were actually working with the al-Qaeda group inside Libya to bring down Gaddafi and the Libyan Revolution.
The man who led the US African Embassy bombings is Anas al-Liby and he remains on the US most wanted list with a $5 million tag on his head for his capture.
Most surprisingly, my mistake, not surprisingly, al-Liby was granted political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May 2000, despite him being a high profile al-Qaeda operative.
Today the British and their Western allies once again are ignoring the voice of Gaddafi and his Libyan Revolution when they say the Benghazi rebels are inspired by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Gaddafi has repeatedly warned of the serious threat the al-Hasidi-led group of rebels poses, not only on Libya but also to the entire Arab region.
The reply Gaddafi has been given for his trouble is hell-fire from the West's mass killing aerial bombing artillery.
The reason for Operation Odyssey Dawn is the fact that the British intelligence forces and others are still in collaboration with the rebels in Benghazi, themselves self-proclaimed members of al-Qaeda.
According to Perreira, these rebels are referred to all over Libya as "the bearded ones", and their ties to al-Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb is common knowledge.
The evidence of the collaboration between the West and al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels is abundant. The British intelligence's relationship with al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Groups is quite traceable.
British intelligence have a long-standing relationship with the Wahhabi/Salafi brand of Islam - advocated today by the Ikwan al Muslemeen (Muslim Brotherhood), and their offshoots, that include al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Perreira gives a bit of history on this. In 1744, Wahhabism founder, Muhammad ibn Abdal Wahhab formed an alliance with the ruthless tribal leader Muhammad ibn Saud, whose descendants rule Saudi Arabia to this day.
This reactionary brand of Islam is the theological foundation for the colonial creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Wahhabism has ever since remained the official Islamic tendency of that area.
In 1915, the British entered a treaty with the house of Saud, protecting their land and supplying them with weapons to help create the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is the British who massively helped the flourishing of Wahhabism because they viewed it as a perfect ideological tool for the pursuit of their imperialistic goals.
Today, Obama, Sarkozy and David Cameron are calling on the descendants of Muhammad ibn Saud, the current Saudi regime, and their army of Wahhabists in the form of al-Qaeda, and the fundamentalists of Benghazi, to join them in a medieval crusade meant to crush a bastion of revolutionary Islam, as is practised in Libya under Gaddafi. These claims can easily be verified.
It is quite revealing and rich that a Saudi government official says on BBC, "To allow the people to choose their own government is a very bad thing."
If Gaddafi had said this, there would have been a huge outcry from Western media. Instead, Obama and his Western colleagues, particularly the French and the British, are calling on the anti-women Saudis to join their Operation Odyssey Dawn - a wanton destruction of Libya, a country that has liberated women and did an impressive effort in establishing real democracy for its people, at least in comparison to the Saudi monarchy.
Libyan women go to school, are allowed to join the police force, the army and are allowed to drive like everywhere else in any liberal society.
According to Richard Spencer of The Telegraph in the UK, al-Qaeda leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi has released a statement backing the Benghazi rebels.
This is said to have happened two weeks ago, and the statement is a confirmation that the Benghazi rebels are part of al-Qaeda and not simply "civilian protesters".
Spencer also said Yusuf Qaradawi, the Qatar based Muslim Brotherhood-linked theologian issued a fatwa authorising Gaddafi's military entourage to assassinate the Libyan leader.
Spencer also wrote, "WikiLeaks cables, independent analysts and reporters have all identified supporters of Islamist causes among the opposition to Col Gaddafi's regime, particularly in the towns of Benghazi and Darnah."
Paul Joseph Watson in Info Wars wrote that while the US "is hyping the threat of Libyan-backed reprisal attacks inside the US", it is launching air strikes "in support of the so-called 'protestors', who have commandeered fighter jets and tanks, and are in fact Islamic fundamentalist al-Qaeda cells who want to impose sharia law in Libya."
Obama's counter-terrorism expert, John O Brennan has expressed fear over the possibility that Gaddafi might cause terror attacks within the US and that he might "flout the will of the international community".
International community is the diplomatic working phrase for Western politicians, and sometimes the phrase is used to describe the United States by itself.
The irony of Obama and Osama being allies against Gaddafi extends to the media fraternity as well.
Paul Joseph Watson wrote: "It is also galling to witness the likes of Fox News and mainstream conservatives, who screamed until they were blue in the face about a mosque being built at ground zero in New York, now ignorantly applauding a United Nations-ordered war with no congressional approval which is solely designed to bring al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic fundamentalists to power."
In March 2004, an Australian newspaper, The Age, reported that MI6 and Libya had struck a deal to fight terrorism and were to share intelligence on the Libya Islamic Fighting Group; the very group today being vehemently backed by Britain, France and the US in Benghazi.
On November 3 2007, the BBC reported that Ayman al-Zawahri had issued a statement saying the LIFG had joined al-Qaeda.
The statement said, "Oh nation of jihad, supporting your sons so that we defeat our enemies and rid our homeland of their slaves."
The message was directed at Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Gaddafi was described as "an enemy of Islam" in this message and he was heavily criticised for giving up weapons of mass destruction in 2003, when he reportedly did so in exchange for an end to Libya's international isolation.
The statement continued, "We proclaim our alliance with the al-Qaeda network . . . to become the faithful soldiers of Osama bin-Laden."
In the tape, a leader of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya was introduced as Abu Laith al-Libi.
The group was formed in the early nineties by Libyans who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, fighters then described as "freedom fighters" by Reagan.
The March 21 attack on the UN Secretary General by pro-Gaddafi protesters in Cairo was not without cause.
The people in this Arab region are well aware of what is happening in Libya and they wanted to make it clear that they are opposed to this Obama-Osama alliance that has resulted in the UN Resolution 1973 -itself the legal tool being used to bombard Libya to smithereens, all for the desire to remove Gaddafi so the imperialist powers can plunder its oil.
Africa we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer