DAY ONE: June 3-4, 2011 — DJERBA, TUNISIA — On Libyan-Tunisian border, it's back to the future with refugees
DAY TWO: June 4-5, 2011 — TRIPOLI, LIBYA. WMR Exclusive. Western Libya portrait is not what is being painted by the Western media
Phi Beta Iota: Details below the line. The public is being lied to by the US Government and its corporate media co-conspirators. The Honorable Cynthia McKinney, daughter of Georgia, is doing what professional intelligence and investigative media should be doing. We need more of this. “The truth at any cost lowers all other costs.”
DAY ONE: June 3-4, 2011 — DJERBA, TUNISIA — On Libyan-Tunisian border, it's back to the future with refugees
During the last air sanctions against Libya, imposed by the United Nations in 1992 over alleged Libyan involvement in the bombings of PanAm 103 and UTA 772, many Libyans traveling to and from Tripoli were forced to fly through Tunisia, traveling overland to and from the Tunisian border to their homes in Libya. With European Union sanctions now imposed on Libya, the old travel regime is back in force.
However, there is a new dimension to the air embargo on Libya. Attracted to the Libyan-Tunisian border by refugees, most African guest workers from sub-Sahara and pan-Sahel African nations, fleeing the fighting in their country, scores of international aid workers now occupy the tourist hotels of Djerba, the once popular Tunisian resort that has fallen on hard times after tour operators canceled excursions following the Tunisian revolution earlier this year.
Today, prior to crossing into Libya, this reporter is witnessing representatives of the “misery industry,” young international aid workers with groups like the International Committee of the Red Cross, EU, and International Organization for Migration, lounging around the tourist hotels mingling with German and French pensioners eager to take advantage of the special travel packages being offered by a depressed Tunisian tourist industry.
Not only is war good for the weapons industry but refugee crises brought about by Western-implemented wars, fatten the wallets of NGOs anxious to cash in on the human misery created by Pentagon and NATO overt and covert military operations. Meanwhile, here in Djerba, near the Libyan frontier, it's pool side and cold Heinekens for the NGO community here to “save” the Libyan refugees.
DAY TWO: June 4-5, 2011 — TRIPOLI, LIBYA. WMR Exclusive. Western Libya portrait is not what is being painted by the Western media
Western media reports continue to indicate that Libyan rebels trying to oust Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi from power, backed by daily NATO air strikes, are gaining ground in western Libya. During a six-hour drive from the Tunisian border to Tripoli, the Libyan capital, this reporter saw no signs of Libyan rebel successes in western Libya. In fact, I witnessed a spontaneous pro-Qaddafi demonstration on the main Tunisia-Tripoli highway in a town about one and a half hours west of Tripoli.
The green flag of the Libyan Arab Jamahiryah not only adorn flag poles in towns from Tripoli to the Tunisian border, but a number of private residences are flying the green flag from their rooftops, on flag poles, and even from outside of top floor windows in medium size and small towns alike along the main highway.
There are some telltale signs of previous fighting in the western part of the country — bullet holes in the walls of some buildings and even some more extensive structural damage — but there are no signs that the rebels, backed by the United States, NATO, and the European Union, have any substantial support in western Libya.
The one major sign of the Libyan civil war lies not in western Libya but across the Tunisian border where several refugee tent cities have been set up to accommodate thousands of refugees, most of them black African guest workers from sub-Sahara and Sahel nations who were set upon by rebels who said the workers were “mercenaries”brought to Libya by Qaddafi to fight on his behalf. In fact, there is a strong anti-black racialist element within the Libyan rebel movement that used the mercenary meme to justify heinous war crimes by rebel units against blacks from other African nations, as well as native Libyan blacks.
While many of the refugee camps on the Tunisian side of the Libyan frontier are sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross, one is funded by the United Arab Emirates, one of the nations participating in President Obama's “coalition of the willing” that is waging a war on behalf of the Libyan rebels. From our hotel on the Mediterranean coast, we expect to see and hear the attacks conducted against military and some civilian targets a further few miles inland in downtown Tripoli.
The EU and NATO sanctions on Libya are being severely felt by Libya's civilians. Petrol stations are rationing gasoline and long lines of cars sit waiting for gasoline to be delivered to the pumps. The NATO, EU, and U.S. policy of “collective punishment” of western Libya's civilian population is being compares to Israel's collective punishment of the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. In fact, many Libyans believe that Obama's crippling sanctions on western Libya were crafted by Israel's lobby in Washington, which pressured the Obama administration into adopting them.
NATO has conducted nightly air strikes against western Libya, including downtown Tripoli, since March 19. The attacks begin around 12 midnight local time and at the time of this report we are expecting another NATO bombing of Tripoli in a little less than an hour.
