Our coverage of Libya

The Libya Secret: How West Cooked Up “People’s Uprising”

As I write this, a new day is dawning in Libya. The “people’s revolt” against yet another tyrant is unquestionably exciting, and the demise (political and/or otherwise) of Muammar Qaddafi will, of course, be widely hailed. But barely below the surface something else is going on, and it concerns not the Libyan “people”, but an elite. In reality, a narrowly-based Libyan elite is being supplanted by a much older, more enduring one of an international variety.

The media, as is so often the case, has botched its job. Thus virtually View article …

The CIA’s Man in Libya?

As the United States and its allies get deeper into the confrontation with Qaddafi in Libya, it’s worth stepping back to consider what is actually taking place—and why.

We’ve been told very little about the rebels seeking to supplant the dictator. But one in particular deserves our attention. General Khalifa Hifter, the latest person to head the rebel forces.

There’s been little effort to look at Hifter’s background. One notable exception was the work of the always-diligent McClatchy Newspapers, which briefly inquired about his background in late March. That report View article …

Libya: Connect the Dots-You Get a Giant Dollar Sign

Article summary: THE FAKE ARAB SPRING

It’s true that Arab Spring is a good thing. It’s true Qaddafi is a bad guy. But connect the dots, and you will see that he is being set up. The evidence points to a plan to create an “Arab Spring” for the Good Old Boys—CIA, banks, oil companies. Read and see if you don’t agree.

In an earlier article, we posed the question, “Why are we in Libya?” We offered some thoughts.

Now, more pieces View article …

In Libya, EU Supports Returning Migrants to a War Zone

A month of chaos and death has revealed the risks of a European Union (EU) migration policy that pays Libyan militias to intercept migrants — and bans humanitarian rescue ships from saving their lives in the Mediterranean.

Members of rival militias began fighting in the streets of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, on August 26. Rockets and heavy artillery are hitting neighborhoods where migrants are held in detention. Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which treats migrants and refugees in Libya, has been calling for emergency evacuations since September 7.

“Several detention View article …

WhoWhatWhy Factchecks the Media: More Questions About the Libyan Sex Atrocity Reporting

STORY SUMMARY:

Media reporting of atrocities by the Libyan regime continues to heat up. The alleged crimes are horrific—Muammar Qaddafi ordering mass, Viagra-fueled rapes. But the claims are mitigated by some really poor journalism, raising suspicions that the public is falling victim to a disinformation campaign. Here’s the latest.

Stories with a sexual component have always been instant hits in the ratings, and things are only getting worse. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, last View article …

Libya Update…Featuring Media and Congress As Daffy Duck

Article Summary: The why of the massive bombing of Libya continues to grow more nonsensical. Congress is baffled into paralysis, and our major media stick to the most honorable interpretation— despite evidence to the contrary.

——————————

Are you following the growing madness that is Libya policy?

We’ve been harping on this for some time, so if you’re a regular visitor to our site, you know all about this. If not, get a primer here, here and here. Last View article …

Here’s Why Libya Is Burning—Again

NEWSFLASH: The U.S. has evacuated its embassy in Tripoli, Libya, because of ongoing violence, U.S. officials tell CNN’s Barbara Starr.

Have you been following events in Libya closely? No, of course you haven’t. Since the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, we’ve scarcely discussed Libya except in the context of a predictable partisan effort to affix blame for a single if tragic event: the deaths of the American ambassador and several others in Benghazi nearly two years ago.

Since then, the country the West purportedly rescued has slid View article …

What Both Hillary and the GOP Are Covering Up About Libya

Congressional Republicans were desperate to score political points in the Benghazi saga. So desperate that they finally decided to masquerade as … peaceniks.

During the recent grilling of Hillary Clinton, the Republicans — who have rarely seen a war they didn’t like — actually criticized the former Secretary of State for ignoring the difficulty of successful regime change. (No mention was made of how well George W. Bush’s regime change has gone in Iraq.)

Further, they claimed that she had run roughshod over her own experts, who warned that US involvement in a 2011 air campaign in support of rebels would View article …

Kerry and McCain Unite Behind the Mysteriously Urgent Libya Mission

At whowhatwhy.org, we’ve been saying for some time that things just don’t add up when it comes to Libya. (For some of our past reporting, see for example this and this and this.) First the White House claimed that NATO needed to engage in a few days of bombing in order to protect Libyan civilians from Muammar Qaddafi’s troops. Those few days have turned into three months, and protecting civilians has morphed into View article …

Quick, Quick: Why Are We in Libya? A New Candor Prevails…Sort Of

You’re probably already consuming everything that appears in the New York Times. But perhaps you’re quite busy, and just can’t get to many of the tasty offerings on that paper’s bulging menu. Or, maybe you’re one of those people who do read as many of the articles as possible—and then wonder what they actually mean.

I’m one of the latter, which is why I ponder each article as if it is in the crossword section. And why I feel compelled to offer you a markup of the following, which View article …

Al Jazeera’s Failures on Libya—and What They Tell Us About the Network

How reliable, really, is Al Jazeera? A lot of people, sick of the superficial and officially-inspired “reporting” found in the Western corporate media, have turned with enthusiasm to the news newcomer¸ a Middle East based tv outfit that employs feisty journalists and often produces on-the-ground reporting not found elsewhere.

That’s great, as far as it goes. But what is Al Jazeera, who is behind it, and to what extent should we count on it to report View article …

WhoWhatWhy’s Libya Primer: The (Still) Untold Back Story to Qaddafi’s Demise

In light of Muammar Qaddafi’s apparent death—and in anticipation of the deluge of news “coverage” that will tell us little of substance about what happened in Libya this past year, and, more importantly, why—we’d like to offer some answers, taken from our reporting over that period. (And please share this information with your friends and colleagues; an informed public is a public not easily duped.)

Read comprehensive coverage of the real story in Libya here:

The Libya Secret: How the West Cooked Up the View article …