Australian Anti-War Activist Joan Coxsedge Condemns `Brutal Cowardly War' in Libya by `Washington and Its Cronies'

In an Oct. 30, 2011 letter from Australia, long-time Australian anti-war activist and writer Joan Coxsedge (who’s also a former elected anti-war member of the Victoria State parliament in Australia and a long-time Latin American solidarity activist) summarized the current world situation, from an anti-war and anti-imperialist left perspective, in the following way:

“I’d prefer to talk about cheerful happy things seeing as how we’re close to Christmas, but the world we live in is so out of whack, so full of hate, deception, war and injustice, we cannot turn our back on its descent into barbarism. I’m thinking of our young and the sort of world I want for them.

“Libya, like everywhere else, wasn’t perfect, and yet it was an example of an independent, prosperous and secular African country which used its great oil wealth for the benefit of the Libyan people, providing free education and health care and decent housing, and helping poor parts of Africa, but which has been completely destroyed in a brutal cowardly war called `humanitarian’ by Washington and its cronies.

“More than 26,000 ‘sorties’ dropped more than 30,000 bombs - an estimated two Libyans killed per bomb without a single NATO casualty. But a major problem looming for freedom-loving NATO and its quisling National Transitional Council (NTC) - now the ‘legitimate’ government of Libya - is that the CIA’s proxy ‘Rebel’ army is led by the violent Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a self-described affiliate of al-Qaida in North Africa. The ‘rebels’ expelled most of Libya’s African migrant population followed by a massacre and ethnic cleansing. Bodies of black men hang along the highways and bound and tortured black Africans are dumped by the roadside, all under the eye of the first Black President of the US of A. The lynchings have been so horrific that African leaders across the continent have been forced to loudly protest, which must have been heard in the White House, but Obama and his cohorts in the western capitals and television news channels prefer words like ‘pro-democracy’, ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘liberation’ to describe the orgy of looting and killing. Mob rule with Orwellian overtones where War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength.

“Qaddafi’s final moments are part of the long trail of savagery. At the end of the battle for Sirte, NATO planes bombed his convoy, killing a large number of people. In Sirte’s Mahari Hotel, more than 50 bodies, some with hands bound, were executed at close range and others were taken from their hospital beds and murdered. Qaddafi survived but was tortured and sodomised by a frenzied mob – captured on phone camera - and allegedly shot by 22-year old Sanad al-Ureibi. Only a few days earlier, US Sec.of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Libya, had said: ‘we hope he can be captured or shot soon’ an incitement against US law and grounds for impeachment.

“I hope Mrs Clinton will be detained in some foreign country and handed a subpoena. According to CBS news, she had a laugh on learning about Qaddafi’s death: ‘we came, we saw, he died,’ she said. Ominous, but should we be surprised? As independent journalist Thomas Mountain writes about the Obama presidency: ’Isn’t this the guy who raised over $500 million to help him buy the White House, with $300 million of that from Wall Street...Isn’t this the guy who surrounded himself before his election with the very worst criminals from the Clinton White House?’

“Meanwhile, the race for juicy contracts has begun. As Qaddafi’s mutilated body lay in a meat store in Misrata, the UK’s Defence Secretary Philip Hammond told British companies to ‘pack their suitcases’ and head to Libya and an Israeli-American company has offered young Libyans jobs to train as police if they refuse to give up their guns.

“Next in line for a ‘democratic’ makeover, Syria and Iran. In Syria, heavily-armed gangs using legitimate demonstrations as cover have killed soldiers, police and civilians in the most brutal way, weapons shipped from Turkey and Lebanon paid for by US ‘fronts’ and others with old scores to settle like the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. If the Syrian government is brought down, there will be bloody turmoil and the status of women and minorities will go down the drain.

“US Attorney-General Holder has upped the ante against Iran by making wild and fabricated claims that it has employed a used-car salesman with a conviction for fraud to hire Mexican gangsters to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. A puerile story but an all too familiar one, using blatant lies to justify another murderous intervention.

“Americans need reminding that while Obama is stripping $320bn from their basic healthcare (50 million can’t afford health insurance and 46 million live below the poverty line), the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost (so far) an obscene $1,268,965,662,411.

“Since we lurched into the 21st century, Washington has destroyed the US Constitution, the separation of powers, international law, the accountability of government and sacrificed every moral principle in its quest to rule the world. Former 4-star general and NATO commander Wesley Clark has described a neocon plan to invade 7 countries in 5 years. On cue, Obama announced he was sending troops to Uganda, South Sudan and the Congo, but only in ‘self-defence’.

“With Libya secured, the US invasion of the African continent is well under way. The target? China replacing al-Qaida as the official American ‘threat’. Whereas China brings Africa investment and infrastructure, Washington sends troops, bombs and military bases. And sooner or later, it’s naked aggression against China and Russia will blow up in our faces, specially here in Australia, where Pine Gap and other US bases play such an integral role in US war games.

“But Americans – like most Australians – have no idea why we’re at war in the Middle East; that our liberties are vanishing and that hard economic times are here to stay, a delusional world created for us by our global masters. While we drown in trivia and irrelevancy no longer permitted to know the truth, our monolithic media bombard us about weapons of mass destruction and demonize Washington’s handpicked enemies.

“But now we have a way to bypass the gatekeepers. All over the web dissident writers are offering alternative analyses of events and drawing attention to significant information ignored or sidelined by the mainstream. Final thought. Barnaby is the 2nd stupidest Joyce in Australia. Unions, fight back!”