The Secret War in Libya

January 23, 2014 (Eric Draitser - Stop Imperialism) - The battles currently raging in the South of Libya are no mere tribal clashes.  Instead, they represent a possible burgeoning alliance between black Libyan ethnic groups and pro-Gaddafi forces intent upon liberating their country of a neocolonial NATO-installed government.

On Saturday January 18th, a group of heavily armed fighters stormed an air force base outside the city of Sabha in southern Libya, expelling forces loyal to the “government” of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, and occupying the base.  At the same time, reports from inside the country began to trickle in that the green flag of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was flying over a number of cities throughout the country.  Despite the dearth of verifiable information – the government in Tripoli has provided only vague details and corroboration – one thing is certain: the war for Libya continues.

On the Ground

Libya’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan called an emergency session of the General National Congress to declare a state of alert for the country after news of the storming of the air base broke.  The Prime Minister announced that he had ordered troops south to quell the rebellion, telling reporters that, “This confrontation is continuing but in a few hours it will be solved.”  A spokesman for the Defense Ministry later claimed that the central government had reclaimed control of the air base, stating that “A force was readied, then aircraft moved and took off and dealt with the targets…The situation in the south opened a chance for some criminals…loyal to the Gaddafi regime to exploit this and to attack the Tamahind air force base…We will protect the revolution and the Libyan people.”

In addition to the assault on the airbase, there have been other attacks on individual members of the government in Tripoli.  The highest profile incident was the recent assassination of the Deputy Industry Minister Hassan al-Droui in the city of Sirte.  Although it is still unclear whether he was killed by Islamist forces or Green resistance fighters, the unmistakable fact is that the central government is under assault and is unable to exercise true authority or provide security in the country.  Many have begun speculating that his killing, rather than being an isolated, targeted assassination, is part of a growing trend of resistance in which pro-Gaddafi Green fighters figure prominently.

The rise of the Green resistance forces in Sabha and elsewhere is merely one part of larger and more complex political and military calculus in the South where a number of tribes and various ethnic groups have risen against what they correctly perceive to be their political, economic, and social marginalization.  Groups such as the Tawergha and Tobou ethnic minorities, both of which are black African groups, have endured vicious attacks at the hands of Arab militias with no support from the central government.  Not only have these and other groups been the victims of ethnic cleansing, but they have been systematically shut out of participation in Libyan political and economic life.

The tensions came to a head earlier this month when a rebel chief from the Arab Awled Sleiman tribe was killed.  Rather than an official investigation or legal process, the Awled tribesmen attacked their black Toubou neighbors, accusing them of involvement in the murder.  The resulting clashes have since killed dozens, once again demonstrating that the dominant Arab groups still view their dark skinned neighbors as something other than countrymen.  Undoubtedly, this has led to a reorganization of the alliances in the region, with the Toubou, Tuareg and other black minority groups that inhabit southern Libya, northern Chad and Niger moving closer to the pro-Gaddafi forces.  Whether or not these alliances are formal or not still remains unclear, however it is apparent that many groups in Libya have come to the realization that the government installed by NATO has not lived up to its promises, and that something must be done.

The Politics of Race in Libya

The Plundering of South Sudan

US AFRICOM, Israel, and Uganda's Dictator-for-Life Yoweri Museveni set up in South Sudan, inflame conflict, push out China and prepare to take over oil. 

January 9, 2014 (LD) - RT's report "Who is to blame for the crisis in South Sudan?" gave a succinct background on the warring factions inside the new "nation" of South Sudan and the Western genesis of the conflict. The report would state: 

The SPLM has received support from the US and Israel throughout the duration of the civil war fought between southern rebels and Khartoum, which has historically had unfriendly relations with the West and has moved very closely to China in recent times to jointly develop the country’s oil wealth prior to the separation. Romantic notions for self-determination did not motivate the West to support southern secession; the objective was to partition Sudan and deprive Khartoum of economically relevant territory in the south where most of the oil fields lie. In exchange for the financial, material, political, and diplomatic support received from the West, the new government in Juba endorsed a ‘Faustian pact’ with its sponsors to open its economy to international finance capital and multinational interests. The government in Juba even applied for IMF membership before it had even officially gained independence from Sudan.

The piece would continue by laying out the current dilemma for the West: 

Despite supporting the South’s independence with diplomatic muscle and military aid, the United States has been unable to gain a foothold in the country’s oil sector; Juba’s crippled economy remains dominated by Asian companies, primarily from China. South Sudan must rely on pipelines that run through Khartoum to export its oil, and the two countries produced around 115,000 barrels of oil per day in 2012, less than half the volume produced in the years before South Sudan's independence. Both sides have nearly gone to war over disputed oil fields that straddle a poorly demarcated border. Judging from the poor economic performance of both countries since the partition and the dramatic loss of the life in the ongoing crisis, the experiment of South Sudanese independence is failing. 

Image: Violence predictably is centered around currently 

Chinese-controlled oil infrastructure. The goal is to have 

violence drive the Chinese out just as was done by NATO 

in Libya.

The piece would go on to note that peace deals reached leaving Sudan intact could have avoided the deadly conflict now raging - and that of course is correct. However, peace is not and never was the goal of the West and its involvement in Africa - economic gain is.

Precisely because China still maintains extensive holdings in Sudan and South Sudan's oil infrastructure, the conflict will be brought to a fevered pitch - and unsurprisingly the conflict's epicenter corresponds with South Sudan's primary oil producing regions. If and when the Chinese are pushed out of South Sudan, the West will continue either across the border to establish routes for exporting their newly gained oil wealth from the landlocked country, or proceed through Kenya with or without the current government in Nairobi's backing.

The BBC would report in their article, "China's oil fears over South Sudan fighting," that (emphasis added):

The stakes could not be higher for China, the largest investor in South Sudan's oil sector, as fierce fighting continues between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those of his former deputy. 

Some of the largest oil fields China operates are in areas controlled by fighters backing Riek Machar, the country's vice-president until he was sacked in July. 

Oil production has already dropped by 20% since the onset of the conflict three weeks ago and more than 300 Chinese workers have been evacuated. 

The spectre of their Libyan experience also weighs heavily on the Chinese minds - project after project now lies deserted because of heavy fighting during the Arab Spring uprising of 2011, inflicting huge losses on China.

Most telling of all is the BBC's reference to Libya - another nation destroyed by Western military aggression that saw both Russian and Chinese interests crumble overnight and replaced by Western corporations. While South Sudan's chaos is being orchestrated more covertly by the West, the final goal of pushing out the Chinese and taking over is the same.

Similar covert destabilization can be seen all across what the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute's report "String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China's Rising Power across the Asian Littoral" calls China's "String of Perals." This includes US-backed militants attempting to carve off the province of Baluchistan from Pakistan where China has established a port at Gwadar and at another Chinese port in the state of Rakhine, Myanmar that has been the scene of brutal, genocidal violence carried out by "democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi's "saffron monks" against Rohingya refugees.

Setting Up Shop in South Sudan 

Old Dog, Old Trick: US, Saudis, Qatar Attempt "Arab Spring" Retread in Sudan

Protests are smokescreen for unfolding US-Saudi-Qatari backed violence seeking regime change in Sudan.

September 28, 2013 (Tony Cartalucci) - The Associated Press reveals that recent and ongoing "Arab Spring-style" unrest in Sudan's capital of Khartoum is led by Sudan's Western-backed opposition, the National Umma Party, and the various faux-NGO's and "independent media" organizations created by the West to prop it up. This reveals yet another Western-engineered uprising designed for regime change in favor of a new, Western friendly client regime.

The AP article, "Sudanese protesters demand the regime's ouster," first claims: 

Activists acknowledge they have no unified leadership or support from political parties but express hope the spontaneous nature of the current round of protests means they're gaining momentum.

However, AP then admits [emphasis added]: 

One of Sudan's most prominent opposition leaders, Sadiq al-Mahdi of the National Umma Party, told worshippers at a mosque in the district of Omdurman that al-Bashir has been spending the state's budget on "consolidating power" and failed "to lift the agony off the citizens' shoulders."

After the sermon, protesters marched through the district, a longtime opposition stronghold, chanting "the people want the downfall of the regime," the slogan heard in Arab Spring uprisings that began in late 2010 and have led to the ouster of the leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Clearly, the "activists" indeed have a leader - Sadiq al-Mahdi of the National Umma Party who was literally leading the protesters out into the streets. And while comparisons to the "Arab Spring" invokes images of peaceful "pro-democracy" protests - AP admits that the protesters are already turning to violence: 

Angry protesters torched police and dozens of gas stations and government buildings, and students marched chanting for al-Bashir's ouster.

AP, perhaps hoping readers would not bother researching the matter further, also quotes "local blogger and journalist Reem Shawka" to bolster their narrative. Shawka is a columnist at Sudan's 500 Words Magazine. While 500 Words maintains that it is "a Sudanese independent online magazine," it proudly advertises in the right column of its website an upcoming US Institute of Peace "Sudanese and South Sudanese Youth Leaders Program." Like Thailand's deceitful US-funded propaganda front Prachatai, 500 Words is most likely directly funded by the US government, and is most certainly in tune with the US State Department's agenda and talking points regarding Sudan.

Image: Sudan's "independent online magazine," 500 Words proudly advertises for the US Institute of Peace on its website (right-hand side), exposing the predictable ties between its support for Western-backed opposition inside of Sudan and the US State Department through the National Endowment for Democracy and others, who most likely funds the online propaganda front. 

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Indeed 500 Words' editor-in-chief, Moez Ali, has his own page on "Open Democracy" - funded by convicted criminal George Soros' Open Society Institute, the Oak Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, TIDES, and many others.

It should be mentioned that the US Institute of Peace - advertised for on 500 Words - has played an instrumental role in the Western-engineered "Arab Spring," where it literally crafts the constitutions and structure of proxy regimes the West plans to create once targeted nations have been overthrown. 

Who is Opposition Leader Sadiq al-Mahdi?

Kenyan Bloodbath: State-Sponsored Sophistication & Motivation

Anti-ICC Kenyan President and his government appear to be the target of US-bolstered Al Qaeda attack.

SIEGFRIED MODOLA/REUTERS

September 24, 2013 (Tony Cartalucci) - What are the chances that family members of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta just so happened to be visiting Nairobi's Westgate Mall in the midst of an unprecedented cross-border attack by Al Qaeda Al Shabaab terrorists - and that these family members were successfully singled out and murdered? The BBC reported in its article, "Nairobi Westgate attack: The victims," that:

President Uhuru Kenyatta's nephew Mbugua Mwangi and his fiancee Rosemary Wahito are among the many Kenyans killed in the attack on the Westgate shopping centre.

What are the chances that Al Qaeda is armed and funded by the US from Afghanistan in the 1980's, to Libya in 2011, and now Syria to undermine enemies of Wall Street and London, but not in Somalia to undermine neighboring Kenya whose new president won partly due to a popular backlash against the West's discredited International Criminal Court (ICC)?

Indeed, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was charged by the ICC for "crimes against humanity" even as he ran for president. The Kenyan newspaper, the Standard, published "Is history repeating itself as Uhuru Kenyatta, like father, faces trial?," where current President Kenyatta's persecution by the ICC is seen as a parallel to the persecution of his father, Jomo Kenyatta, by British colonial rule. It stated:

In April 2011, Ngengi Muigai, a close relative of Uhuru drew parallels between his charges at the ICC and the trial, jailing and unlawful detention of his father by the British colonial government. 

How much can a wife and a mother bear? Her husband's tribulations from the British colonialists and now her son from the neo-colonialists said Ngengi. 

Mama Ngina had said at the same venue: I'm sure Uhuru, Ruto and the rest will go to The Hague and come back so that we can proceed with nation building. 

She said this on the day she laid hands on both her son and Ruto as she prayed for their safe return from The Hague. 

She said the charges facing her son and his co-suspects were the work of neo-colonialists and urged Kenyans to stand by Uhuru and resist just like they had resisted the British colonial rule.
The colonialists gave us problems and it is now clear they have never relented, said the former First Lady.

The former first lady is not alone in viewing the ICC as the modern day successor of old European subjugation and colonization. President Kenyatta's persecution by the ICC is a tell-tale sign that he has made enemies in the West. The ICC itself is a discredited institution openly collaborating alongside NATO and in particular, the US, UK, and France to target political enemies around the world.

Kenyan Bloodbath: Reaping the "Benefits" of US AFRICOM Collaboration

NATO's North African terror tidal wave predictably sweeps into Kenya.

September 23, 2013 (Tony Cartalucci) - At face value, and how the Western media is attempting to portray it, the Westgate Mall siege in Kenya's capital city of Nairobi appears to be yet another senseless terrorist attack by the "religious fanatics" of Al Qaeda's Somalia franchise, Al Shabaab. Already, both Kenyan and Western politicians, as well as editorials across the Western media, are attempting to use the attack as a pretext to launch a military campaign against neighboring Somalia, while fueling anti-Muslim sentiment across profoundly ignorant audiences in the West.

A telling op-ed in USA Today titled, "Nairobi mall attack strikes against all of us: Column" states in its subtitle that:

As on 9/11, terrorists are waging a war on our modern, democratic way of life. Today, we are all Kenyans.

The op-ed continues by stating:

Just as important: The fight is not just a Kenyan, or African, fight. Somalia could be the new Afghanistan. A lawless, fundamentalist Somalia could incubate a Somali Osama bin Laden and new attacks on the USA, just as Afghanistan protected and nurtured bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

And:

After the Nairobi attack, the message should be "We Are All Kenyans." Not just in our sympathy. But also in going all out to prevent another terrorist attack. 

Leaving Somalia to al-Shabab is not an option.

Kenya: Proxy for US Aggression in Africa

What the USA Today op-ed fails to mention, even as it alludes to impending military intervention in Somalia, is that Kenya has already participated in military operations against its northern neighbor, including a full-scale military invasion complete with US and French military support in 2011. In the UK Independent's October 2011 article, "Somali invasion backed by West, says Kenya," it was reported that:

Kenya has confirmed that Western allies have joined its war on Islamic militants al-Shabaab despite denials from the US and France that they are involved in fighting in southern Somalia. Foreign military forces have carried out air strikes and a naval bombardment close to the militant stronghold of Kismayo, a Kenyan army spokesman said yesterday. 

“There are certainly other actors in this theatre carrying out other attacks,” said Kenya's Major Emmanuel Chirchir. 

The Kenyan invasion has already caused a major rift between Somalia's interim prime minister and president, who yesterday condemned the presence of foreign troops inside his country.

While the US attempted to deny any role in the invasion, it has admittedly carried out periodic airstrikes and drone strikes across Somalia, as reported by the BBC's 2012 article, "Somalia air strike 'kills foreign al-Shabab militants':" 

The US military, which has a base in neighbouring Djibouti, has previously carried out drone strikes in Somalia. 

It has also launched air strikes against alleged al-Qaeda militants in the country.

Before using Kenya as a proxy for US aggression in Africa, and amidst two decades of unilateral, covert military operations, the US had backed two Ethiopian invasions into Somalia. The first US-backed invasion, under then US President George Bush, was carried out in 2006. USA Today reported in its 2007 article, "U.S. support key to Ethiopia's invasion," that:

The United States has quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia, whose recent invasion of Somalia opened a new front in the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

The second US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, under US President Barack Obama, was carried out in 2011 - coordinated with Kenya's 2011 US-French-backed extraterritorial adventure into Somali territory. The UK Independent's December 2011 article, "UN-backed invasion of Somalia spirals into chaos," reported that:

Kenya's invasion of Somalia, hailed by the West and the UN Security Council, was meant to deliver a knockout blow to the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab. Instead it has pulled Somalia's regional rival Ethiopia back into the country, stirred up the warlords and rekindled popular support for fundamentalists whose willingness to let Somalis starve rather than receive foreign aid had left them widely hated.

It was in fact this US-backed military invasion that served as the alleged motivation of the Al Shabaab terrorists who attacked Kenya's Westgate Mall this week.

The Same Terrorists the US is Arming in Syria are Killing Civilians in Kenya 

Beginning in 2011, geopolitical analysts warned that US, British and French intervention in Libya would create a terror emirate that would unleash a tidal wave of militant destabilization across Northern Africa and beyond. From Mali to Kenya, and as far as Syria, violence directly linked to the militants and the aid and weapons they received from the West in Libya, have now been felt.


Image: (click image to enlarge) Truly NATO's intervention in Libya has been a resounding success. Not only has the West managed to revive the terrorist LIFG organization Qaddafi had been fighting successfully for decades, but now "international institutions" have a casus belli spreading across the whole of North Africa, into the Middle East and beyond as NATO weapons and Western cash enable LIFG fighters to battle as far as Syria in the east and Mali to the west. The wave of terror unleashed and the predictable "pretexts" it will provide, has now swept into Kenya.  

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Conflict in the Congo: Geopolitics of Plunder

January 20, 2013 (excerpt from Nile Bowie's Congo’s M23 conflict: Rebellion or Resource War?) - It must be recognized that Kagame controls a vastly wealthy and mineral-rich area of eastern Congo – an area that has long been integrated into Rwanda’s economy – with total complicity from the United States. As Washington prepares to escalate its military presence throughout the African continent with AFRICOM, the United States Africa Command, what long-term objectives does Uncle Sam have in the Congo, considered the world’s most resource-rich nation? Washington is crusading against China's export restrictions on minerals that are crucial components in the production of consumer electronics such as flat-screen televisions, smart phones, laptop batteries, and a host of other products. The US sees these Chinese export policies as a means of Beijing attempting to monopolize the mineral and rare earth market.

By Design: French Mali Invasion Spills into Algeria

January 17, 2013 (LD-Tony Cartalucci) - Exactly as predicted, the ongoing French "intervention" in the North African nation of Mali has spilled into Algeria - the next most likely objective of Western geopolitical interests in the region since the successful destabilization of Libya in 2011.

In last week's "France Displays Unhinged Hypocrisy as Bombs Fall on Mali" report, it was stated specifically that: 

"As far back as August of 2011, Bruce Riedel out of the corporate-financier funded think-tank, the Brookings Institution, wrote "Algeria will be next to fall," where he gleefully predicted success in Libya would embolden radical elements in Algeria, in particular AQIM. Between extremist violence and the prospect of French airstrikes, Riedel hoped to see the fall of the Algerian government. Ironically Riedel noted: 

Algeria has expressed particular concern that the unrest in Libya could lead to the development of a major safe haven and sanctuary for al-Qaeda and other extremist jihadis.

And thanks to NATO, that is exactly what Libya has become - a Western sponsored sanctuary for Al-Qaeda. AQIM's headway in northern Mali and now French involvement will see the conflict inevitably spill over into Algeria. It should be noted that Riedel is a co-author of "Which Path to Persia?" which openly conspires to arm yet another US State Department-listed terrorist organization (list as #28), the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to wreak havoc across Iran and help collapse the government there - illustrating a pattern of using clearly terroristic organizations, even those listed as so by the US State Department, to carry out US foreign policy."

Now, it is reported that "Al Qaeda-linked" terrorists have seized American hostages in Algeria in what is being described by the Western press as "spill over" from France's Mali operations.

The Washington Post, in their article, "Al-Qaida-linked militants seize BP complex in Algeria, take hostages in revenge for Mali," claims:

"As Algerian army helicopters clattered overhead deep in the Sahara desert, Islamist militants hunkered down for the night in a natural gas complex they had assaulted Wednesday morning, killing two people and taking dozens of foreigners hostage in what could be the first spillover from France’s intervention in Mali."

France Displays Unhinged Hypocrisy as Bombs Fall on Mali

NATO funding, arming, & simultaneously fighting Al Qaeda from Mali to Syria.

January 11, 2013 (LD) - A deluge of articles have been quickly put into circulation defending France's military intervention in the African nation of Mali. TIME's article, "The Crisis in Mali: Will French Intervention Stop the Islamist Advance?" decides that old tricks are the best tricks, and elects the tiresome "War on Terror" narrative.

TIME claims the intervention seeks to stop "Islamist" terrorists from overrunning both Africa and all of Europe. Specifically, the article states: 

"...there is a (probably well-founded) fear in France that a radical Islamist Mali threatens France most of all, since most of the Islamists are French speakers and many have relatives in France. (Intelligence sources in Paris have told TIME that they’ve identified aspiring jihadis leaving France for northern Mali to train and fight.) Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), one of the three groups that make up the Malian Islamist alliance and which provides much of the leadership, has also designated France — the representative of Western power in the region — as a prime target for attack."

What TIME elects not to tell readers is that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is closely allied to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG whom France intervened on behalf of during NATO's 2011 proxy-invasion of Libya - providing weapons, training, special forces and even aircraft to support them in the overthrow of Libya's government. 

 

As far back as August of 2011, Bruce Riedel out of the corporate-financier funded think-tank, the Brookings Institution, wrote "Algeria will be next to fall," where he gleefully predicted success in Libya would embolden radical elements in Algeria, in particular AQIM. Between extremist violence and the prospect of French airstrikes, Riedel hoped to see the fall of the Algerian government. Ironically Riedel noted: 

Algeria has expressed particular concern that the unrest in Libya could lead to the development of a major safe haven and sanctuary for al-Qaeda and other extremist jihadis.

And thanks to NATO, that is exactly what Libya has become - a Western sponsored sanctuary for Al-Qaeda.

Fortune 500 Awards Tunisian President "Chatham House Prize"

Corporate-financier think-tank Chatham House showers Tunisia's President Moncef Marzouki with accolades and praise.

November 28, 2012 (LD) - The Chatham House, a corporate-financier funded think-tank based in the United Kingdom, announced on its website earlier this week that it had awarded President Moncef Marzouki of Tunisia their 2012 "Chatham House Prize." Chatham House claimed on their website that Marzouki has "ensured that Tunisia remains at the forefront of the new democratic wave in the Middle East and North Africa."

Marzouki, who accepted the award in person (presented by the Duke of York in London) was one of several nominees which also included Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Previous recipients include US-British backed "democracy icon" Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar. 


Image: Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki speaks in London before the Chatham House, a think-tank representing the collective interests of the largest corporations and financial institutions on Earth. Many of these special interests are responsible for the years of support he received while in exile, laundered through fronts such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), cultivating him as the future head of the West's new client-regime in Tunisia.  

.... 

Ironically, Tunisia's streets are now, just days later, filled with protesters decrying the very same economic conditions that spurred protests early in 2011 leading to Moncef's ascension to power. Marzouki's security forces have begun cracking down using teargas and birdshot, leaving 250 wounded. Protesters claim that some have also been killed, but government sources deny this, and the Western media, unlike in 2011, has granted Tunisia's new strongman the benefit of the doubt.

Such generosity exhibited by the Western press is owed to who Marzouki really is a representative for - the very corporate-financier interests that are partnered with the Chatham House.

Marzouki, who had been living in exile in Paris France for years, was head of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, a US National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros Open Society-funded International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) member organization. He was also founder and head of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, a collaborating institution with the US NED World Movement for Democracy (WMD) including for a "Conference on Human Rights Activists in Exile" and a participant in the WMD "third assembly" alongside Marzouki's Tunisian League for Human Rights, sponsored by NED, Soros' Open Society, and USAID.

NATO Using Al Qaeda Rat Lines to Flood Syria With Foreign Terrorists

2007-2008 US West Point reports reveal Al Qaeda network behind NATO's so-called "freedom fighters." Extremists in Syria were behind Iraq War foreign terrorist influx, not Syrian government.
by Tony Cartalucci

October 25, 2012 - The discredited and now obscure, defected Syrian ambassador Nawaf Fares, had claimed mid-summer of 2012 that the Syrian government had been behind the influx of foreign terrorists that entered Iraq during the later phases of the US-British occupation of Iraq. These terrorists took part in campaigns of sectarian-driven violence that divided and destroyed an already devastated Iraq. Fares spectacularly claimed that he himself was involved in organizing terrorist death squads in a hamhanded attempt to implicate the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

What Fares actually revealed however, was an invisible state within Syria, one composed of Saudi-aligned, sectarian extremism, operating not only independently of the government of President Assad, but in violent opposition to it. This "state-within-a-state" also so happens to be directly affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, the leading forces now fighting in Syria with significant Western-backing against the Syrian government.

The documented details of this invisible terror state were exposed in the extensive academic efforts of the US Army's own West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). Two reports were published between 2007 and 2008 revealing a global network of Al Qaeda affiliated terror organizations, and how they mobilized to send a large influx of foreign fighters into Iraq.

Image: Cover of the US Army's West Point Combating Terrorism Center report, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq." The report definitively exposed a regional network used by Al Qaeda to send fighters into Iraq to sow sectarian violence during the US occupation. This exact network can now be seen demonstrably at work with NATO support, overrunning Libya and now Syria. The terrorists in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi that US Ambassador Stevens was arming, is described by the 2007 West Point report as one of the most prolific and notorious Al Qaeda subsidiaries in the world. 

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The first report, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq," was extensively cited by historian and geopolitical analyst Dr. Webster Tarpley in March of 2011, exposing that NATO-backed "pro-democracy" rebels in Libya were in fact Al Qaeda's Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), listed by the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf) as an international terrorist organization.

The West Point report exposed Libya as a global epicenter for Al Qaeda training and recruitment, producing more fighters per capita than even Saudi Arabia, and producing more foreign fighters than any other nation that sent militants to Iraq, except Saudi Arabia itself.  

Image: Libya, despite its relatively small population, came in second overall, producing foreign fighters to wage sectarian war in Iraq. Libya exceeded all other nations per capita in producing foreign fighters, including Al Qaeda's primary patrons, Saudi Arabia. These diagrams were produced by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, on pages 8 and 9 of its "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" report. 

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But Libya's foreign fighters weren't drawn equally from across the nation. They predominately emanated from the east (Cyrenaica), precisely where the so-called 2011 "pro-democracy revolution" also began, and where most of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's attention had been focused over the course of at least three decades, fighting militant extremists. The cities of Darnah, Tobruk, and Benghazi in particular fielded the vast majority of foreign fighters sent to Iraq and also served as the very epicenter for the 2011 violent, NATO-backed uprising.

Image: (Left) West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's 2007 report, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" indicates that the vast majority of Al Qaeda terrorists arriving in Iraq from Libya, originated from the country's eastern region, and from the cities of Darnah and Benghazi in particular. (Right) A map indicating rebel held territory (red) during Libya's 2011 conflict. The entire region near Benghazi, Darnah, and Tobruk served as the cradle for the so-called revolution. The US government is just now revealing the heavy Al Qaeda presence in the region, but clearly knew about it since at least as early as 2007, and as other reports indicate, decades before even that. 

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Clearly, the US military and the US government were both well aware of the heavy Al Qaeda presence in Cyrenaica since as early as 2007. When violence flared up in 2011, it was clear to many geopolitical analysts that it was the result of Al Qaeda, not "pro-democracy protesters." The US government, its allies, and a complicit Western press, willfully lied to the public, misrepresented its case to the United Nations and intervened in Libya on behalf of international terrorists, overthrowing a sovereign government, and granting an entire nation as a base of operations for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

A similar scenario is now playing out in Syria, where the West, despite acknowledging the existence of Al Qaeda in Benghazi, Libya, is using these militants, and the exact same networks used to send fighters to Iraq, to flood into and overrun Syria. This, after these very same Libyan militants were implicated in an attack that left a US ambassador dead on September 11, 2012.

Image: Libyan Mahdi al-Harati of the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), addressing fellow terrorists in Syria. Harati is now commanding a Libyan brigade operating inside of Syria attempting to destroy the Syrian government and subjugate the Syrian population. Traditionally, this is known as "foreign invasion." 

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LIFG terrorists are veritably flooding into Syria from Libya. In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, "Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group," would report:

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, "met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey," said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. "Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there." 

Another Telegraph article, "Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels," would admit

Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya's new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested "assistance" from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.

"There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria," said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see."

Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and have been flooding into the country ever since.

Image: (Left) West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's 2007 report, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" also indicated which areas in Syria Al Qaeda fighters filtering into Iraq came from. The overwhelming majority of them came from Dayr Al-Zawr in Syria's southeast, Idlib in the north near the Turkish-Syrian border, and Dar'a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border. (Right) A map indicating the epicenters of violence in Syria indicate that the exact same hotbeds for Al Qaeda in 2007, now serve as the epicenters of so-called "pro-democracy fighters."

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In Syria, the southeastern region near Dayr Al-Zawr on the Iraqi-Syrian border, the northwestern region of Idlib near the Turkish-Syrian border, and Dar'a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border, produced the majority of fighters found crossing over into Iraq, according to the 2007 West Point study.

These regions now serve as the epicenter for a similar Libyan-style uprising, with fighters disingenuously portrayed as "pro-democracy" "freedom fighters." These are also the locations receiving the majority of foreign fighters flowing in from other areas described in the 2007 report, mainly from Saudi Arabia via Jordan, and from Libya, either directly, through Turkey, or through Egypt and/or Jordan.

Image: The most prominent routes into Syria for foreign fighters is depicted, with the inset graph describing the most widely used routes by foreign fighters on their way to Iraq, as determined by West Point's 2007 Combating Terrorism Center report "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" (page 20).  These same networks are now being used, with the addition of a more prominent role for Turkey, to target Syria directly. (Click to enlarge)

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The 2007 West Point report also describes the routes taken by the fighters entering Iraq. The most prominent routes by far were from Syria itself, the Libya-Egypt-Syria route, the Saudi Arabia-Syria route, and the Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Syria route. These routes are clearly being used yet again, only this time, instead of sowing sectarian violence and destabilization in Iraq, these foreign fighters, with NATO backing, are targeting Syria directly.

Subversion of Syria was Planned by the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia in 2007.

While many Western  think-tank documents, including the joint US-Israeli "Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," recognized Syria as a threat to corporate-financier hegemony throughout the Middle East and beyond, it wasn't until at least 2007 that a fully articulated plan was developed for actually rolling back or eliminating Syria as a viable, independent nation-state.

The specific use of Al Qaeda-affiliated militant organizations, not just inside Syria, but from across the region was a key component of the plan,  revealed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker report titled, ""The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?"

In the report it specifically stated:

"To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007) 

Hersh's report would continue by stating: 

"the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

The link between extremist groups and Saudi funding was also mentioned in the report, and reflects evidence presented by the West Point CTC indicating that the majority of fighters and funding behind the sectarian violence in Iraq, came from Saudi Arabia. Hersh's report specifically states:

"...[Saudi Arabia's] Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)

Despite the narrative repeated by the Western press, it would appear that the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia above all others, constitute the greatest purveyors of state-sponsored terrorism. Furthermore, it would appear that the most feared and notorious international terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, and its various affiliates including the Muslim Brotherhood political front, was in fact not only created by the US and Saudi Arabia in the mountains of Afghanistan in the 1980's, but has since then been perpetuated by the US and Saudi Arabia.

Nations accused of coddling Al Qaeda and sponsoring terrorism, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Qaddafi's Libya, have in fact fought the hardest against these extremist forces but have been consistently sabotaged by Western efforts portraying targeted militants as "pro-democracy protesters" as was done in Libya when Qaddafi's forces were at the gates of Benghazi. Similarly, this is being done in Syria today as the government of President Bashar al-Assad fights fiercely against these verified, documented terrorist networks, habitually referred to by the Western press as "freedom fighters" and "pro-democracy rebels."    

The Syrian Government's Role in Supporting Al Qaeda in Iraq. 

The Western press insists that the Syrian government constitutes a threat to international security. It has been implied on many occasions that the Syrian government has been, or still is supporting Al Qaeda. However, what does the West Point Combating Terrorism Center say about the Syrian government's role regarding the influx of foreign fighters into neighboring Iraq during the West's occupation?  Or the history of the Syrian government in relation to militant extremist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Al Qaeda itself?

Image: West Point's second report on Al Qaeda's networks used to funnel foreign fighters into Iraq titled, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," goes deeper in depth into who was really behind the influx of terrorists, how it was accomplished, and a range of options that might be applied to prevent it from happening. The report gives great insight into just how NATO and the Persian Gulf states are using Al Qaeda to now destabilize Syria.

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In a second report, published in 2008 titled, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," a rare and candid history is given regarding the genesis of Al Qaeda and the history it has had in Syria. It includes a revelation that contradicts the talking-points often repeated across Western media in regards to Syrian President Hafez Assad and his crackdown in the 1980's. The media attempts to imply that President Hafez Assad was merely an autocrat and had brutalized civilians for simply rising up against him. The 2008 CTC report however, states (emphasis added):

During the first half of the 1980s the role of foreign fighters in Afghanistan was negligible and was largely  un‐noticed by outside observers. The flow of volunteers from the Arab heartland countries was just a trickle in the early 1980s, though there were more significant links between the mujahidin and Central Asian Muslims—especially Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Kazakhs. Individuals like the above‐mentioned Abu’l‐Walid were recruited in the early years via ad hoc outreach campaigns initiated from within Afghanistan, but by 1984, the resources being poured into the conflict by other countries—especially Saudi Arabia and the United States—had become much greater, as had the effectiveness and sophistication of the recruitment efforts. Only then did foreign observers begin to remark on the presence of outside volunteers.

The repression of Islamist movements in the Middle East contributed to the acceleration of Arab fighters leaving for Afghanistan. One important process was the Syrian regime of Hafez Assad’s brutal campaign against the Jihadi movement in Syria, led by the “Fighting Vanguard” (al‐Tali’a al‐Muqatila) of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The crackdown initiated an exodus of Vanguard militants to neighboring Arab states. By 1984, large numbers of these men began making their way from exile in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan toward southeastern Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. (page 24, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," (2008)

It appears then that Hafez Assad's "brutality" was aimed at sectarian extremists - fanatics that would later form the foundation of Al Qaeda and serve as a force of violence and destabilization throughout the world, with, as mentioned by the West Point CTC itself, resources poured into them, especially from "Saudi Arabia and the United States."

The 2008 report reiterates the importance of Libya's LIFG in regards to the large numbers of fighters it sent to Iraq and its official merging with Al Qaeda, stating:

Today, the LIFG is an important partner in al‐Qa`ida’s global coalition of Jihadi groups. The late Abu Layth al‐Libi, LIFG’s Emir, reinforced Benghazi and Darnah’s importance to Libyan Jihadis in his November 2007 announcement that LIFG had joined al‐Qa`ida, saying:

"It is with the grace of God that we were hoisting the banner of Jihad against this apostate regime under the leadership of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which sacrificed the elite of its sons and commanders in combating this regime whose blood was spilled on the mountains of Darnah, the streets of Benghazi, the outskirts of Tripoli, the desert of Sabha, and the sands of the beach." (page 38-39, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," (2008)

The report goes on to describe the manner in which these fighters eventually made it into Iraq, all traveling through Syria. The report reveals that it was "coordinators" working with extremist groups in Syria, opposed to the government, not the government itself that was recruiting and arranging transportation for fighters into Iraq. Throughout the report, measures put in place by the Syrian government in fact attempted to stop the flow of fighters through Syrian territory, but were simply ineffective due to the complicated demographics and economic conditions along border regions. The report states:

Syria can almost certainly do more to disrupt the traffic across the border. However, it is unrealistic to expect the regime to expend more energy, given the economic and internal political importance of the underground cross border trade to Syrian social and political leaders, and the inherent limits of the regime’s ability to enforce a crackdown indefinitely. (page 98, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," (2008)

Nowhere in the document is any evidence provided that the Syrian government actively facilitated Al Qaeda and the movement of extremist fighters through Syrian territory. Any help that might have been lent from the government would have come from characters like Nawaf Fares acting independently, whose loyalty was always questionable at best, and who eventually defected to these very extremist groups when fighters finally shifted their attention from Iraq to Syria in 2011.

It is clear that the Syrian government, for decades, has been fighting against sectarian extremism, militant terrorism, and more specifically the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda itself. What the Western press has attempted to portray as an autocratic regime brutalizing a civilian population simply aspiring for "democracy" and "freedom," is in reality a government desperately trying to protect its sovereignty and the vast majority of its population from the ravaging effects of sectarian extremism, previewed during the Iraq "civil war," and now fully realized within the borders of Syria itself.

It was perhaps the compromises made by Syria to placate a perceived "international consensus" in regards to "freedom" and "democracy" that gave militants the foothold they needed to trigger the violence now unfolding across Syria and beyond its borders. It is hoped that by documenting the evidence provided by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, that this wave of terrorism can be better understood and therefore defeated. It is hoped that people both in the United States and in Syria can see what forces among themselves have contributed to the perpetuation of Al Qaeda and its use as a militant proxy, and purge these organizations and their ideology permanently from the body politic.

Image: From West Point's CTC report, "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," a map indicates the number of total fighters that served as the statistical basis for the center's analysis. It would appear that there are many other potential nations that may yet suffer the fate of Libya and Syria within this network alone. A success in Syria for the West would validate this model for regime change, and surely be tried elsewhere.

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By reading the tremendous body of work provided by the US Army's West Point Combating Terrorism Center's reports, "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq" and "Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road In and Out of Iraq," other nations at risk of potentially falling prey to a similar use of Al Qaeda as a proxy serving Western foreign policy, can begin making preparations and raising awareness regarding the truth behind this geopolitical tool.

International Law Suffers Another Blow in Libya Conflict

NATO silent as its client regime vows "no mercy" for city of Bani Walid.
by Tony Cartalucci

October 19, 2012 - The United States invoked the so-called "responsibility to protect" doctrine as justification for NATO military intervention in Libya, based on fears that the Libyan government was about to enter, and eliminate systematically, resistance in the eastern city of Benghazi. This was based on alleged statements made by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, claiming he would hunt armed resisters, "door to door."

Image: Cover of the ICISS report on "The Responsibility to Protect," also known as R2P. R2P is a geopolitical mechanism used to couch foreign military aggression within "humanitarian concerns." NATO's use of the doctrine in Libya was based on "evidence" now admittedly fabricated by the Libyan opposition itself, with the subsequent military intervention killing by far more people than the violence it claimed it was stopping. Additionally, the intervention installed a government guilty of documented and sweeping atrocities that dwarf accusations made against Qaddafi - this includes NATO-backed rebels exterminating a city of 10-30,000 black Libyans (and here). For a definitive look at R2P, please listen to James Corbett's excellent presentation, "R2P or: How the Left Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Wars of Imperial Aggression."

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Qatari state-run Al Jazeera reported in a March 2011 article titled, "Obama defends military intervention in Libya:"

In blunt terms, Obama said the Western-led air campaign had stopped Gaddafi's advances and halted a slaughter that could have shaken the stability of an entire region and "stained the conscience of the entire world".

"To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and more profoundly our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are."

"I can report that we have stopped Gaddafi's deadly advance," the US president said.

"We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supply of cash, assist the opposition, and work with other nations to hasten the day when Gaddafi leaves power," he said.

Now, fighting has erupted across Libya once more - and "rebels" are rising up against the client-regime installed by NATO late last year. NATO's proxies in Tripoli have stated, according to the Guardian's report, "Confusion rife as Libyan army storms town of Bani Walid:"  

"A lot of people who supported Gaddafi are hiding now in Bani Walid. We have a list of names. They are fighting very well because they know they are going to die soon."

Clearly, this constitutes as clear a case for "R2P" as the West claimed it had in 2011. With Qaddafi declared dead and his government swept aside in a bloodbath of reprisals and atrocities, documented safely in retrospect by disingenuous "international" institutions such as Human Rights Watch and the US State Department-affiliated Amnesty International, the people in Bani Walid are fighting for much more than just the fact that they are "supporters of Qaddafi."

In the divided Libya that emerged from NATO's military intervention, sectarian violence, discrimination, and marginalization has ensued, betraying the "democratic" values NATO claims to have brought to Libya' shores. The persisting resistance in Libya stems not only from a sense of injustice regarding the installation of a government by foreign interests through the use of foreign military force, but also from increasing anger over injustice purveyed by the new proxy-regime itself.

 

Video: Wiped out. Tawarga, once home to 10,000 (this video claims up to 35,000) people, many part of Libya's black community who had resided in the country for generations, had its inhabitants either exiled, imprisoned or exterminated. NATO-backed militants told the Telegraph in 2011, " every single one of them has left, and we will never allow them to come back." This, along with recent reports of a similar campaign of genocide directed at the inhabitants of Bani Walid, have failed to incur the same "outrage" exhibited by the West's "international community," thus exposing the "primacy of international law" as a selectively enforced doctrine, both applied and suspended for geopolitical convenience. 

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That NATO's proxies in Tripoli have announced intentions to systematically exterminate people found on their "list of names," without the same international outrage exhibited before NATO's intervention last year, exposes an egregious, selectively applied double standard that in fact drives the current "international order," undermining what Western corporate-financier interests claim is the "primacy of international law."

With the facade of "democratic" Libya unraveling, what is left is evidence of a self-serving corporate-financier agenda of military and economic conquest, merely couched in the premise of "humanitarian intervention" and "global democracy promotion." NATO's new failed state, once the most thriving nation in Africa, provides a cautionary model with which to measure similar designs now being directed toward Syria.

Libya, like Iraq and Afghanistan are all warnings of the dangers of "international law" that presumes primacy over state sovereignty. NATO's failure in Libya, exposed from the beginning as a war of aggression built on a pack of verified lies, should provide ample evidence as to why NATO should be excluded from any further role in "international conflict resolution" beyond the borders of its membership, indefinitely.

Western Geopolitical Blitzkrieg in Sudan

Sudan: Protests and the Politics of Regime Change

Eric Draitser 

Stop Imperialism

July 23, 2012

(Images & captions added) 

The protests that have broken out in Sudan are, on the surface, the manifestation of legitimate grievances.  Portrayed in the Western media as a direct response to austerity measures implemented by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, these protests indicate a strong current of dissatisfaction among the people of the country.  However, seen from a broader, more critical perspective, the demonstrations are the tangible fruits of a carefully constructed destabilization campaign incorporating opposition political parties, civil society groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Hollywood celebrities and Western financiers.  These powerful forces have aligned against the government in Khartoum in order to execute the geopolitical agenda of the imperialist ruling class in the West.

The Development of the Protests

The immediate impetus for the protests, which broke out in recent weeks in and around the capital of Khartoum, was the announcement of the removal of fuel subsidies.  This troubling development, coupled with other austerity measures such as the reduction of government jobs and the devaluation of the currency, were designed to mitigate the effects of soaring inflation in Sudan.  However, because of the integral role of fuel prices in the Sudanese economy, the move seemed to spark mass indignation.  In a country already dogged by high unemployment and rampant poverty, these difficult decisions inflamed already high tensions throughout the country.

 

Image: Areas in red are either being destabilized, already wrecked (Libya), while areas in blue include areas of American influence, or in Iraq's case, recent occupation replaced with a covert presence. Sudan is amongst them, and on US Army General Wesley Clark's list of nations the Pentagon sought to overthrow since at least 2001 - part of a larger agenda of achieving global hegemony.

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Reports from inside Sudan suggest that a small group of female demonstrators gathered outside dormitories at the University of Khartoum and began protesting the fuel subsidy cuts, among other issues. This was the first in what became a series of daily demonstrations against a whole host of grievances.  Central among these was the feeling, widespread among particularly young people, that the government in Khartoum was punishing the people while continuing to spend “lavishly” on defense.  Many groups directly involved in the protest movement, groups such as Sudan Change Now and the popularized twitter moniker #SudanRevolts, have used the demonstrations as a springboard for a much broader and, it could be argued, more opportunistic agenda, one that is directly in line with the geopolitical interests of the United States and the Western imperialist ruling class: regime change.

This is, of course, not to diminish the genuine grievances of many of the demonstrators. Instead, it is important to maintain a critical understanding of the way in which these sort of movements are hijacked or otherwise cynically manipulated through a variety of means by those in the West for whom power and hegemony are the goals above all else.

The Wizards Behind the Curtain

In order to understand the way in which the protests in Sudan, and movements like them all over the world, are manipulated, influenced, or otherwise controlled by Western powers, we must first examine the major players and the often deliberately obscured connections between them, western intelligence networks, and international financiers.

In Sudan, we’ve seen an extraordinary proliferation of western-financed NGOs that have entrenched themselves in the civil society of the country, particularly in an urban center such as Khartoum.  Organizations such as Sudan Now and the Enough Project (the latter of which is directly connected to George Clooney, the US State Department and George Soros) indicate the degree to which humanitarian concerns and NGOs are utilized by the US imperialists as cover for their geopolitical agenda.  In fact, in the case of Clooney and the Enough Project, we see the presence of John Prendergast, head of the organization and former Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council.  His participation, not to mention his close relationship to UN Ambassador Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and the International Crisis Group of George Soros, should illustrate the degree to which this and other organizations working inside Sudan are either directly or tangentially part of the US intelligence establishment.

The Enough Project is also significant because of its ability to sell a Western-constructed narrative of Sudan to an unsuspecting and generally ill-informed public.  George Clooney who, along with Council on Foreign Relations member Angelina Jolie, has cultivated an image as a politically progressive humanitarian, is able to construct a particular discourse in the American public’s imagination: Bashir is a monster and the United States must act decisively including possibly using force, to remove him from power.  Such a dominant narrative, once entrenched in the public discourse, becomes difficult, if not impossible, to deconstruct.

The Enough Project and other humanitarian organizations alone are not the whole story, however.  Important players inside the country are also playing an integral role in the attempt at regime change in Sudan.  One such important individual is Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, head of the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP), one of the leading factions within the often-fragmented political opposition.  Turabi, a longtime “progressive Islamist”, is not merely a major player in Sudanese politics.  In fact, he’s one of the leading “experts” on Sudan with long-standing connections to the US State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED).  In fact, as recently as 2008, Turabi was one of the keynote speakers at the NED in Washington DC where he presented on, among other things, how to bring about regime change in Sudan.  Though the usual covers of “democracy promotion”, “transparency”, and other such high-minded abstractions are utilized by Turabi and the NED, these are merely the rhetorical devices used to obscure the obvious goal of such a conference.

Turabi’s association with the NED and the US intelligence community is not only significant in demonstrating the role that those institutions are playing in destabilizing Sudan.  It also demonstrates the way in which the US imperialists have long-standing ties with so-called “Islamists”, a conclusion made ever more apparent by the ascension of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the deployment of Al Qaeda and other religious militants in Libya, Syria, and elsewhere.  In this way, a clearer understanding develops of just how the Western imperialists are able to utilize a variety of means, many of which are “Islamist” in nature, to destabilize regimes they deem to be unfriendly.

International Subversion

Aside from having to deal with powerful forces engaged in the internal struggles in Sudan, Bashir’s government has also been faced with extraordinary international pressure.  Not only has Bashir himself been accused by the ICC (itself an arm of US-NATO power projection) of being a war criminal for his purported role in the conflict in Darfur, he has also watched as the United States and other Western powers fomented a brutal civil war, only to then partition the country, carving out South Sudan, and create the conditions for the current situation.  Essentially, Bashir has had to try to maintain his grip on the country in the face of a multi-pronged effort to destroy his regime and the Sudanese state.

The conflict with South Sudan has taken a heavy toll on the Sudanese economy.  Because of the loss of an estimated 75% of total oil reserves located in the South, inflation has dramatically increased and Khartoum’s revenue from trade with China and other major oil importers has decreased sharply.  Additionally, the skirmishes and other armed conflicts between North and South have focused Bashir’s attention to the Abyei Province and other border areas and, consequently, away from other pressing concerns inside the country.  This was precisely what the Western powers intended when they began pushing for the partition of the country a few years ago.

The imperialist aggression against Libya was an indication to many keen observers that the imperialist ruling class had every intention of completely consolidating control over all of North Africa by removing any vestiges of nationalism and any leaders who might pose a challenge to AFRICOM and the neo-colonial agenda.  Gaddafi met his barbaric end at the hands of a vicious lynch-mob or, as they’re called in the West, “freedom fighters”. They and their NTC masters such as Mahmoud Jibril, now the head of the so-called Libyan government, were merely puppets of the West, supported for purposes of economic exploitation of natural resources and to create a safe haven for terrorists to then menace the rest of the region.  Likewise, Bashir is on the target list and, without taking precautions, could meet the same fate.

What Do They Want?

The United States and its western partners have a number of goals in seeking regime change in Sudan.  As is the case in so many other conflicts around the world, the main objective is to block Chinese economic development.  The Chinese have, for years, been the biggest importer of Sudanese oil and, other than Angola, Sudan was its main supplier on the continent. Aside from oil however, Sudan had become one of the main markets for Chinese economic investment.  In fact, by 2002, Sudan was China’s fifth biggest source of revenue and had become a major player in the power generation and other markets.  For these reasons, China began to pose a threat to US hegemony in East Africa and, from the perspective of the imperialists, had to be checked.

 

Image: Cutting China off from the Middle East, as well as destabilizing and peeling off nations along its so-called "String of Pearls," its sphere of influence throughout the Pacific and Indian Ocean, has been a geopolitical agenda of the West for nearly two decades.

Aside from China, the United States has other geopolitical and economic reasons for destabilizing Sudan.  Washington seeks to consolidate control over East and Central Africa and, in order to do so, must eliminate one of their biggest obstacles, Sudan.  The US has gone to painstaking lengths to maintain compliant puppet governments in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and elsewhere.  In so doing, the US is able to keep Central and East Africa under their thumb, at least to some degree. By destroying the Bashir regime, these imperialists believe they will be able to project US hegemony forward for the foreseeable future and, as a result, secure unfettered access to the wealth of raw materials in the region.

There is also an element of opportunism to this plan.  The West looks to capitalize on the still viable discursive construct of the Arab Spring as a means to their end.  So long as this idea can inspire masses of disaffected youth to take to the streets, the United States and its partners can continue to impose their will in the region. However, as the conflict in Syria has unequivocally shown, without such mythological pretexts, it becomes impossible for the imperialists to achieve their goals.

In examining the situation in Sudan, it is important to keep in mind that a critical, anti-imperialist perspective does not mean that one absolves Bashir of any wrongdoing.   In fact, it should illustrate the ways in which Bashir and his government have contributed to creating the climate that breeds such protests.  However, by analyzing this uprising and investigating simultaneously the positive and insidious forces at work within it, we can begin to apply a broad understanding to the issue and, in so doing, work to prevent the Western imperialist ruling class from destroying yet another sovereign state.

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Read more of Eric Draitser's work and listen to his weekly podcast covering geopolitics on StopImperialism.com.