EXCERPT:
Tripoli, of course was the site of the vast US Air Force base, appropriated in 1943, when Libya was ruled by the British backed King Idris. The then US Ambassador to Libya had called it: “A little America on the sparkling shores of the shores of the Mediterranean.”
The base, renamed “Wheelus”, remained American until Quaddafi overthrew Idris’s regime in 1969 and closed all foreign bases.
The base became Tripoli international Airport, now bombed.The liberators will surely award themselves the rebuilding contracts and planning for the re-opening of the base is, equally surely, underway.
The US had, of course, under the project of AFRICOM, offered African governments money to “host” American bases. Quaddafi, reportedly, offered them twice as much not to, resulting in a formal rejection of AFRICOM by the African Union, in 2008.
It was a prescient Tripoli taxi driver, who told the LA Times: “I have a fear that one day we will be like Iraq, wishing for the days of Muammar Quaddafi.”
Afghanistan, bombed and invaded less than a month after 9/11 to free it from a “repressive” and “tyrannical” regime, now has 400 US and “coalition” bases. (vii) Iraq, also freed from the “Butcher of Baghdad” by US-led largesse, based on a pack of lies about as ridiculous as the pack of “Most Wanted” playing cards, now has 14 city sized bases and a list of others, near inexhaustible. (viii) The “coalition” are there to stay.
In an interview this week, “Middle East Peace Envoy”, former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, still not in the International Criminal Court in the Hague, in spite of the best efforts of some towering legal minds, made it clear that Syria and Iran were next, firmly in US/UK sights.
General Wesley Clarke, of course, told “Democracy Now” (2nd March 2007) that in 2001, after 9/11, he was told by a Pentagon official that the US planned to attack seven countries in five years. They were: “Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran.” Bombing Afghanistan was already underway.(iv)
And the contractors are already queuing to re-arm that which they sold Libya, now destroyed, and to rebuild. Britain, now under Prime Minister “this will be a Libyan led transformation, we have learned from Iraq” Cameron. “Libya – The Future” is a not to be missed Conference, to be held in London, 26th and 27th September:
“The race is on for countries and businesses to create strategic alliances with the Libyan National Transitional Council regime. Government body, UK Trade and Investment, plans an invitation only Conference, Tuesday 27th September.
“You really need to be at ‘Libya – The Future’, at the prestigious QE11 Conference Centre, in the heart of Westminster.” At up to £3,000 a delegate. (x)
On this tenth anniversary of 9/11, Abdul Hakim Belhadji, allegedly formerly on US and UK terrorist lists, moved to Tripoli to be Libya’s new leader, backed by the same US and UK. This as his “rebel forces” are reported to have entirely ethnically cleansed, Tawarga, a town of 10,000 people, which now lies entirely empty. (xi)
After 9/11: “The US enjoyed an outpouring of global sympathy. Within a couple of years, that sympathy had been squandered”, wrote Rupert Cornwell, in the Independent this week.
A friend who has spent every waking hour since the Iraq invasion of 2003, trying to put back the lives of Iraqi refugees who fled the invasion, perhaps said it all for invasions since, and planned:
“Dear USA, Your 9/11 is our 24/7.”
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