Minister Farrakhan Opposed U.S. Military Attack On Libya

Anti-War Writer Diane Johnstone Opposes US/UK/French Governments' Military Attack On Libya

George Galloway Opposes US/UK/French Government Military Attack On Libya

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 12

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“…The United States gave notice on 26 March [1986] that it planned to conduct exercises from 23 March to 1 April in an area of the Mediterranean which included the Gulf of Sidra…Americans fired a number of missiles at Libyan radar installations on land on the grounds that they were a threat to US planes while US planes and ships attacked Libyan missile-armed ships `that were deemed to threaten the U.S. fleet’ and two of the Libyan ships were sunk. On 27 March the Pentagon announced that the exercise was to be concluded. The US ships remained in the central Mediterranean…

“…On 14-15 April [1986], US military planes from bases in Britain and the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in a raid that was in retaliation for Libya’s alleged responsibility for terrorist activities in Europe. Casualties amounted to 130 including Gaddafi’s adopted daughter…

“…The United States claimed that the bombing had been precise, on military targets; in fact it was imprecise and killed civilians…

“…The story of the US raid on Libya, both before when it had to be justified and afterwards when it had to be explained, is a sorry tale of lies, half-truths, misinformation and dishonesty in pursuit of a vendetta more suitable to a Sicilian bandit than an American President…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 11

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“Military confrontation between the United States and Libya was to occur in August 1981 when US Navy planes operating from carriers of the US Sixth Fleet on naval exercises in the Mediterranean flew deliberately close to the Libyan coast and then shot down two Libyan jets which had challenged the US presence in the Gulf of Sidra. The air fight took place about 60 miles off the coast of Libya but whereas Libya claims the normal twelve-mile coastal limit it makes an exception of the Gulf of Sidra where it has drawn a baseline across the mouth of the Gulf of Sidra and extended its limit twelve miles to the north of this…

“…In March 1982…President Reagan decided to ban the import of Libyan oil and prevent certain listed items from being exported to Libya…

“Perhaps, above all, it was the extension of Libyan activities into Latin America, even more than Gaddafi’s hard line on the United States’ ally Israel, which infuriated Washington. He focused his support upon Nicaragua and El Salvador although also making arms, funds and training available to leftist groups throughout the region. In 1981, according to the State Department, Gaddafi provided $100 m to Nicaragua; from May 1982 several deliveries of Libyan arms were made to the Sandinistas and the Salvadoran guerrillas…As Gaddafi said in his speech of 1 September 1983 (the fourteenth anniversary of his coup), `When we ally ourselves with revolution in Latin America, and particularly Central America, we are defending ourselves…’…

“…Between 1975 and 1983 Libyan forces were expanded from 22,000 in the former year to 85,000 in the latter…By 1983, of $28bn worth of arms purchases about $20bn had come from the USSR or East Europe…

“…During the year [1985]…the Nation of Islam, headed by Louis Farrakhan…received a $5m loan from Gaddafi for use in providing economic assistance to American blacks…

“…The President [Reagan]…went on to impose sanctions on virtually all economic activities between the United States and Libya, the measures to take effect no later than 1 February [1986]…A second executive order blocked Libyan government property in the United States. The sum total of the US measures amounted to some of the most comprehensive sanctions ever mounted by the Washington administration…

“…In March 1986…reports suggested that Gaddafi had secretly given $400m to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 10

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“The extent of enmity towards Gaddafi in the West was highlighted in 1989 when Gaddafi claimed that Western security agencies had tried to destroy him in 1980. An Italian inquiry revealed that the shooting down of an Italian domestic flight, IH870, from Bologna to Palermo on 27 June 1980, had been in mistake for the airplane carrying Gaddafi on the same flight path on his way to Warsaw. The Libyan jet turned sharply eastwards just north of Sicily; then the Italian jet was hit by a missile and all 81 passengers were killed. The evidence at this time came from the confession of an Italian military radar technician. The story resurfaced at the beginning of 1996 when documents seized from the retired head of the Italian counter-espionage service, Demetrio Cogliando, revealed that the Italian DC-9 was `caught in the wrong place during an attempt by NATO fighters to blast Colonel Muammar Gaddafi out of the skies with a missile’. According to the story French and US jets launched an operation to kill the Libyan leader but panicked when attacked by escorting MiGs; then, when the civilian airliner came in range, a French Mirage fighter fired without checking the plane’s identity. General Cogliandro’s papers describe how one MiG was shot down and how subsequently five US P-3 Orions searched the rugged Calabrian countryside, in vain, to find the fuselage. When the plane was eventually found pressure was applied to the doctors who examined the body not to reveal the cause of death. General Cogliandro also blames the then Italian Prime Minister, Francesco Cossiaga, for the cover-up that followed. Not many leaders of Third World countries have been targeted in such a fashion by the West…

“Tiny Rowland, the controversial British business entrepreneur, agreed in the Observer of June 1992 that the West (the United States and Britain) had acted in relation to Libya against the UN Charter and International Law…

“…As irritating as Gaddafi may seem to the West, in general its pressures upon him are out of proportion to his offenses and this is surely true if compared with Western reactions to other regimes that defy Western influence…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 9

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“During the 1920s and 1930s Italy under Mussolini expended large sums to expand its colonial control over Libya with the development of towns and roads for the benefit of Italian settlers. By 1928, having broken their earlier promise to the Senussi to colonize only the coastal regions, the Italians had moved to complete the conquest of the whole country. In 1935 Mussolini launched his program of `demographic colonialization’ to establish about 150,000 Italian settlers in Libya, equivalent to nearly 20 per cent of the country’s population, by the outbreak of World War II. During the war Libya was fought over first by the British and Italians and then by the British and Germans…When the war ended Italy had been defeated and Libya was occupied by British troops…It was a vast under populated desert country soon to be designated the world’s poorest nation by the newly formed United Nations. A Senussi force had fought against the Italians alongside the British; in return Britain had pledged that Libya would not be returned to Italian rule…The UN General Assembly voted to make Libya an independent kingdom by January 1952. The pro-British Sidi Muhammad Idris al-Mahdi al-Sanussi, grandson of the man who created the Senussi sect, became King Idris I and declared Libya independent on 24 December 1951.

“The government of King Idris was pro-British and pro-Western…The discovery of oil in 1959 transformed Libya’s economic fortunes although the descent upon the country of a range of international oil companies over the succeeding ten years must have seemed like another colonial invasion even if this time an economic one. Against such a background it is unsurprising that the militant young revolutionaries who came to power in 1969 should at once have proclaimed their anti-Western credentials…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 8

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“…Libya has had a long colonial history and a brief examination of it will clarify the Gaddafi story.

“Libya, or at least its Mediterranean littoral, came under the Ottoman Empire early in the sixteenth century, although for slightly more than a century (1711 to 1835) it enjoyed nominal autonomy under the Karamanli dynasty before the Ottomans re-established their full control to rule the territory once more through officials from Istanbul. Then occurred for Libya, the most significant event of the nineteenth century: the rise of the Senussi sect. Sidi Muhammad ibn Ali as-Sanusi, an Islamic theologian, was born in 1787 in northern Libya and founded the Sanusiyah, a militant mystical sect which was both religious and nationalist in its teaching and impact…He founded his new order in the Hejaz (of what later became Saudi Arabia) but was expelled by the Ottoman rulers in 1841 and so moved to Cyrenaica in Libya where, basing his support upon tribalism, he used his new order to challenge the authority of the Ottoman Turks…Sanusi died in 1859 but his movement, whose main strength lay in Cyrenaica, was to act as the Libyan nationalist spearhead in the twentieth century while his grandson would become the first ruler of an independent Libya as King Idris I…For a hundred years the sect had been the center of nationalist opposition, first to continuing Ottoman rule and then to Italian colonialism.

“At the tail end of the `Scramble for Africa’ the Italians…invaded Libya in 1911, allying themselves with elements in the country who saw them as a welcome alternative to the Turks. Although Italy soon knocked the Turks out—they sued for peace in 1912—the war to make Italian occupation effective continued throughout World War I…On 26 April 1915, it [Italy] entered into an agreement with Britain, France and Russia under which Italy would be allowed to claim extra territory in Africa, adjacent to its existing colonies, should Britain and France increase their African colonial possessions at the expense of Germany as a result of the war. In the case of Libya this meant expanding its territories in relation to the borders with neighboring French Tunisia and British-controlled Egypt. France yielded a strip of Tunisian territory to Italian Libya in 1919 while negotiations with Egypt resulted in the movement of the Libyan border to include the oasis of Jaghbub in Libyan territory in 1925…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 7

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“During the 1970s when he was at the height of his influence and oil wealth, Gaddafi became involved in a number of African countries, providing either financial support to regimes of which he approved or more clandestine support to liberation or opposition movements…

“…Libya was an important financial backer of the Polisario guerrillas in Western Sahara during the 1970s as they fought for independence from Mauritania and Morocco…

“…By the mid-1970s Gaddafi was supplying money, arms and training for liberation movements in Eritrea, Rhodesia, Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau), Morocco and Chad; and aid for sympathetic regimes such as those in Togo, Uganda and Zambia…

“…In an article of 11 August 1972, the Beirut daily Al-Bayraq advanced the following figures for Libyan financial support: al-Fatah--$50m; Tunisian opposition--$13m; Moroccan opposition--$20m; for revolutionaries in Chad--$10m; for American black movements (spread over three years)--$24m; and for the IRA (over two years)--$10m…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 6

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“In 1970 Gaddafi staked his claim to leadership in relation to the Palestinian question and by May of that year was advancing a Libyan plan to co-ordinate action against Israel; the plan envisaged financial contributions, the unification of commando organizations and the creation of an Arab Palestinian `government-in-exile’….

“…On 17 September [1970] [Jordan] King Hussein…used his Bedouin army to destroy the Palestinian threat and in eleven days of fighting in and around Amman about 1000 Palestinians were killed and many more wounded in what the Palestinians came to call `Black September’…Gaddafi supported the Palestinian rebels…and redirected his aid to the Palestinian guerrillas…

“The Palestinians now made Lebanon their principal base and an estimate of 1972 suggested that as many as 600 Libyans joined the Palestinians, some taking part in the rocket attack upon Tzefat in northern Galilee on 9 January [1972]…

“…A rift developed with the Palestinians during the early stages of the Libyan cultural revolution which Gaddafi launched [in]…April [1973] and 13,000 Palestinians then resident in Libya complained that they had been ill-treated; some teachers and students were deported and 30 people arrested. In July [1973] the PLO claimed that Libya had closed its guerrilla training camps and had dismissed many Palestinians from their jobs. Yet, despite what appeared to be a major quarrel between Libya and the Palestinians, Gaddafi continued to maintain his links with the various Palestinian groups including Yassar Arafat…

“…A 1982 Israeli Defense Force [IDF] document provides details of Libyan financial support to the PLO which included a 1978 promise of $39.3m a year.

“In January 1980 a rift developed between Gaddafi and Arafat…Libya formally broke relations with al-Fatah and all aid was suspended; Libya continued its support to the other Palestinian groups…

“…Gaddafi…decided to expel 30,000 Palestinian refugees [in 1995] on the grounds that with the Israeli-PLO agreement the Palestinian problem had been solved. Gaddafi told the pro-Libyan daily Al-Arab, published in London, that he wished to dramatize the fact that, despite the PLO-Israel peace accords, most Palestinians remain refugees…On 26 September 1995, the Libyan authorities ordered all Palestinians to report to emergency camps on the Egyptian border ready for expulsion within 24 hours…

“…If negotiations [between Israel and the Palestinians] collapse, Gaddafi will be able to argue that he was right all along…”

Black Male Worker "Not Seasonally Adjusted" Jobless Rate Still 17.5 Percent Under Obama & GOP House of Representatives

In February 2011, the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States was still 17.5 percent under the Democratic Obama Administration and the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives; while the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 12.9 to 13 percent between January and February 2011, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age also was still 37.2 percent in February 2011. The number of unemployed Black female workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States also increased by 13,000--from 1,179,000 to 1,192,000--between January and February 2011, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data.

Between January and February 2011, the official number of employed Latino or Hispanic workers in the United States also dropped by 131,000—from 19,711,000 to 19,580,000—according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data; and the number of Latino or Hispanic women workers over 20 years-of-age with jobs decreased by 188,000—from 7,873,000 to 7,685,000 during this same period.

The number of unemployed white women workers over 20 years-of-age also increased by 52,000—from 3,808,000 to 3,860,000—between January and February 2011, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data; while the official jobless rate for white women workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 7 to 7.1 percent during the same period. The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 9.1 percent in February 2011; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all U.S. male workers over 16 years-of-age was still 10.5 percent in February 2011. For all U.S. workers (male and female) over 16 years-of-age, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate was still 9.5 percent in February 2011; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all young workers between the ages of 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 24.1 percent in February 2011.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ March 4 2011 press release:

“…The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was 6.0 million and accounted for 43.9 percent of the unemployed…

“The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged at 8.3 million in February. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job…

“In February, 2.7 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, up from 2.5 million a year earlier…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey…

“Among the marginally attached, there were 1.0 million discouraged workers in February…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Employment in both state and local government edged down over the month. Local government has lost 377,000 jobs since its peak in September 2008…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 5

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“Perhaps oil is the reason for the bitter Western hostility to Gaddafi that developed so quickly after he came to power, for no other oil-producing state was prepared to tackle the oil companies so forthrightly as did Libya. Gaddafi’s determination to take on the major oil companies in the early 1970s, forcing them into a series of deals that both increased the price paid for Libya’s oil and gave Libya a controlling stake in its own resources for the first time revolutionized the entire relationship of oil consumers and producers in the Middle East and provided the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC] with `teeth'….

“…Libya pursued its policy of nationalization through 1974 and on 11 February announced the total nationalization of three U.S. companies—Texaco, California Asiatic and the Libyan-American Oil Company—which had refused to accept the 51 per cent Libyan participation deal of 1973…

“…In January 1976 Libya made its first major offshore discovery 100km north of Zuwara. On 24 September 1977 Libya nationalized two US companies: Standard Asiatic Oil, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of California; and Texaco Overseas Petroleum, a subsidiary of Texaco. Full compensation was promised by the Libyan government…

“Gaddafi has used his oil wealth—and the surplus it gave him—to support a variety of nationalist and other causes round the world…Gaddafi has been able to make important political gestures to his people by means of his oil wealth…In broad political terms huge oil revenues enabled Gaddafi to secure his home political base by paying for a range of social policies that have produced major improvements in housing, education, employment and social services while also providing him with a surplus in support of his foreign activities…At the end of 1994 Libya’s proved oil reserves at 22,800,000,000 barrels represented 2.3 per cent of world reserves and had an estimated lifespan at current rates of production of 44.6 years…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 4

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“On 7 December 1969, came the first coup attempt against the new regime when two officers—Colonel Musa Ahmed, Minister of the Interior, and Lt.-Col. Adam el Hawaaz, Minister of Defense, the only two officers to be included in the new cabinet—conspired to seize power…Only in August 1970 were sentences announced…The discovery of a second plot that July [1970] was a factor in…demand for harsher sentences and these were eventually announced in October [1970]. Adam Hawaz and Musa Ahmed were sentenced to death, although the latter’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment…The fresh plot of that July was described by Gaddafi as a `reactionary imperialist plot’ whose object was to appoint Abdallah Abid Senussi (an uncle of the deposed king) as Prime Minister…

“…1975 was the year in which he faced real internal opposition, including serious student unrest…In June [1975]…one…report claimed that 39 military officers had been arrested in March [1975] for telling Gaddafi to change his policies and have his mental health checked. Anti-Gaddafi demonstrations in Benghazi were reported, two military camps there were closed down and another report suggested that a coup attempt had been discovered and quashed on the day it was supposed to take place…

“On 7 October 1982, Gaddafi stated that `the door of repentance was still open to exiles who wished to renounce their opposition to the regime and return home; otherwise, he said, `the Libyan Arab people will assume responsibility for their liquidation.’ In November of that year there was another unsuccessful army plot against Gaddafi who meanwhile was mounting a campaign against his opponents outside the country, some of whom were assassinated. At the end of April 1983, after attacking corruption in the army, especially among officers, Gaddafi announced the partial disbandment of the army and the formation of a `People’s Army’ which would include school and university students.

“There was an ugly turn to both the opposition to Gaddafi and its suppression during May 1984 when the National front for the Salvation of Libya (which was based in Sudan and had close links with the Muslim Brotherhood) carried out a series of shootings in Tripoli. There were immediate reprisals and during July suspected opponents of Gaddafi and the government were tried in special courts which had been convened by `popular committees’ and those found guilty were hanged…

“…In 1991 some 20 civilians were killed in clashes with the police in Benghazi when they protested at the executions of 32 dissidents on 7 June [1991] while opposition groups claimed that about 3000 dissidents had been arrested since 1989…

“Another coup attempt occurred in October 1993 and large numbers of arrests followed the rebellion of an army unit near Misurata to the south of Tripoli. Growing dissatisfaction was compounded by worsening economic conditions as a result of UN sanctions…The uprising which was substantial and involved about 3000 troops lasted three days but was suppressed by forces loyal to Gaddafi…

“…In September 1995 fighting broke out in Benghazi (which had become a centre of Islamic militancy) after a policeman shot dead a taxi driver. Clashes with the security forces led to five deaths…”

Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 3

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“…Critics of Gaddafi, and he has many, tend to portray him unthinkingly as a mercurial, dictatorial figure implying that any benefits the people have received from the revolution are likely to be incidental rather than planned. This is to underestimate not only Gaddafi and his co-revolutionaries who were perfectly genuine in their desire to improve the lot of the Libyan people as a whole but also the need of all political leaders, whether dictators or not, to enjoy a base of popular support for once that is lost their days are numbered…

“…During 1971 the government began to tackle development problems with precise programs. At that time an estimated 72 per cent of the Libyan population was illiterate; the government launched a 15-year program to eliminate illiteracy…

“…A five-year housing plan for 1971-76 set a target of providing 15,000 housing units a year. At the time an estimated 150,000 Libyans were living in sub-standard housing and a further 30,000 to 70,000 were homeless…

“…In the field of housing 3500 medium-range housing units were completed in 1972 and a total of 6650 units altogether.

“These were impressive statistics for a small country with a population then estimated at under 2 million which in the 1950s had been rated as one of the poorest in the world by the United Nations…

“…By 1975 the Libyan people were experiencing better economic conditions than ever before, after six years of rule by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). But, as always in such a revolutionary situation, the government now had to cope with its own success in the form of the rising expectations of the people. In January 1976…a decision relating to housing laid down that people earning less than 100 dinars a month would not have to pay rent…

“During 1992 Libya began to suffer as a result of UN sanctions…

“…Despite the complex political pressures which Gaddafi always manages to attract to himself, in economic matters the Libyan people have done reasonably well out of the revolution. Their per capita income is the highest in Africa, while other statistics of well-being are equally impressive: one doctor per 948 persons, one hospital bed per 207, daily calorific (food) intake at 140 per cent the FAO recommended minimum. Overall, the economic achievements of the revolution have been very substantial indeed.

“…Plenty of dissidents have fled the country and as time has passed Gaddafi has become increasingly ruthless with his political opponents…”