Mr. President, Know Thyself by Kathleen Kirwin + Chomsky on the hypocrisy of western intervention

by Kathleen Kirwin
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
March 19, 2011

Postscript to an Open Letter to President Obama

Mr. President, yesterday you proudly and vehemently “raised your voice against the violence of the oppressed” in Libya. You proclaimed:

All attacks against civilians must stop.

Gaddafi must stop his troops from advancing on Benghazi, pull them back… and establish water, electricity and gas supplies to all areas.

Humanitarian assistance must be allowed to reach the people of Libya or the “international community will make him suffer the consequences” with military action.

These words and sentiments are familiar to you, Mr. President, since you lifted them from Afghan President Karzai less than a week ago. The only discernable difference is that President Karzai was not railing about Qadaffi at the time—he was talking about you. In point of fact, he was talking directly to you. He spoke to you as he attended the memorials of nine children your military subordinates killed on your behalf and at your command on the 1^st of March. [I feel compelled to offer a piece of free legal advice at this time: consider refreshing yourself on the law regarding “command responsibility” and the concomitant criminal liability therefore.] In that regard, you and Muammar Qadaffi are brothers. He is killing civilians as we speak. You are killing civilians as we speak. He is bombing civilians. You are bombing civilians. It is your war which will not allow “water, electricity, and gas supplies to all, or hardly any, areas of Afghanistan. It is your war which prevents humanitarian assistance from reaching the people of Afghanistan, just as you say Qadaffi’s does. And according to both of you, you justify your respective wars on fighting the threat of Al Qaida, the ubiquitous enemy.

You have demanded, backed by an unveiled threat of force, that a sitting president of a sovereign state, Muammar Qadaffi, “stop killing civilians.” The sitting president of another sovereign state, Afghanistan, has demanded the exact same of you–repeatedly–and yet how disparately you deliver and receive the identical message. Your arrogance knows no bounds.

In making that repeated demand as he did last week as he stood with grieving families of dead children, he let it be known that, “This is the voice of Afghanistan.” And notwithstanding that it’s a voice you have ignored, flaunted, denied, and rationalized, for almost three years now, it is the one thing in Afghanistan you have NOT managed to kill or destroy. The Afghan “voice’ is the only “weapon” the people have left and you cannot take it from them. It’s theirs and you can’t have it, no matter how many individual voices you continue to silence by death. It is also the voice of America, but you are as deaf to that voice as you are to President Karzai and his people. But I know you will listen, ever so carefully, to every word and nuance of Muammar Qadaffi in the coming hours, and even before the last word is spoken, you will kill his civilians for him and save him the trouble. You expect, demand, and threaten, while even now your first bombs and those of your “allies” are falling on Libya, that Qadaffi do what you will not– stop killing civilians.

“…I knew that I could not ever again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greater purveyor of violence in the world: my own government.” Dr. Martin Luther King in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, April 4, 1967.

Mr. President, know thyself.

[Kathleen Kirwin is a trial attorney specializing in high-level civil rights and criminal cases and is currently based in Sarasota, Florida. She also practices international human rights and criminal law and has been an anti-war activist for the past 40 years. Kathleen can be contacted at kdkirwin@gmail.com. Her new website, The Revolutionary Legal Front, is under construction and will be online soon.]

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[DS added the videos.]

Lybia: Chomsky on the hypocrisy of western intervention

mr1001nights on Mar 19, 2011

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Chossudovsky: New deadly war theater opened in Libya

RussiaToday on Mar 19, 2011

So a multi-national force has carried out a series of attacks against targets around the Libyan city of Benghazi. French fighter jets destroyed several armoured vehicles and tanks belonging to Colonel Ghaddafi’s troops. It was joined by the U.S. military that struck against Libya’s air defences, using cruise missiles. UK forces are also in action over Libya. These are the first raids since the UN Security Council adopted a resolution allowing the use of “all the means necessary” to protect the civilian population in Libya. Earlier, troops loyal to Colonel Ghaddafi reportedly carried out attacks on Benghazi, which is the rebel stronghold, violating a ceasefire. RT talks to Michel Chossudovsky, who’s director of the Centre for Research on Globalisation.

see

Peace is not yours to give, Mr. President by Kathleen Kirwin

To Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg: “Brutal, Savage and Unacceptable.” by Felicity Arbuthnot

Afghan Police Protecting Protesters! + Former Afghan spy chief forms grassroots movement

Obama v. Obama by Dennis Kucinich + Chossudovsky: Libya no-fly zone means war

US Navy launches Tomahawk missiles on Libya

Dennis Kucinich On Obama Libya Action: It’s Not Up To The President, It’s Up To Congress