Is the enemy of our enemy really our friend?

By Dark Politricks

As the recent desecrating of British World War II graves in Benghazi shows we are have not been thanked by all Libyans for helping them other-throw Col Gaddafi.

This is just a consequence of the Empires double dealing with both sides of the Devil.

Selling arms to Gaddafi when it suited us and then allowing our supposed mortal enemy al-Qaeda to basically take over large parts of the country and kill Gaddafi when we were tired of him.

The reasons for the desecration are not clear yet and have been linked to the recent burning of the Koran by US forces in Afghanistan. But then what do you expect from militant religious extremists who only believe in black and white and see the Empire tormenting and teasing them at every turn.

I can only imagine the rage by certain quarters of the media if a groups of Muslims did the same sort of thing to us, by burning a big stack of Bibles or maybe desecrating Christian and Jewish graves in a Benghazi cemetery...

Lest no-one think that al-Qaeda linked rebels are not in control we only need to look at the rebel commander of Tripoli, Abdelhakim Belhaj,  a confirmed ex LIFG terrorist who was actually tortured on the behest of MI6 by the Americans for his links to al-Qaeda. Something which he is now trying to sue the British Government and MI6 for.

However despite us knowing the types of people we were dealing with we still chose to go ahead and help install in power al-Qaeda linked terrorists.

Yes, we were admittedly other-throwing a despicable leader who tortured many of his own people . Yet Gaddafi was no worse or better than any of the other despots and dictators we deal with on a day to day basis. We deal with Saudi Arabia and China for heavens sake so no moral absolutism here please.

We live in a world full of moral relativism and "realpolitik" and any politician who declares otherwise is lying for your vote.

But look at Libya now. It's a mess that even mainstream media are reporting on and you know it must be bad when even the MSM start peeling back the layers of propaganda and reveal partial truths on their nightly news shows.

Like Iraq before it Libya is suffering even more than before our “interventions”. Rapes, summary executions, crackdowns on journalists, and militias roaming the streets unwilling to give up their western gifts of guns, RPG’s and other arms that they are now using to fight each other with.

All whilst the National Transitional Council (NTC) says that everything is just fine, nothing to see here they say even whilst fighters from the two towns of Zawiyah and Warshefana were shooting it out in the latter part of 2011. During the clashes which saw many deaths the NTC leader was insisting that everything was okay.

"I want to assure the Libyan people that everything is under control" said Mustapha Abdul-Jalil the supposed interim leader of Libya.

How much control does he actually have when he cannot even disarm the hundreds of rebel groups who have replaced the Libyan authorities and are now fighting along tribal and religious lines. Settling scores with weaponry paid for by Western tax payers.

So it is of little surprise that some of the more extreme rebels / terrorists we have helped install into power in Libya are now showing their displeasure at the Empires actions in other Muslim countries we have helped "liberate" by attacking World War II cemetery's.

We know how far some of these people are prepared to go to defend their religion by previous acts when we have burned Korans or even showed pictures of Mohammed in newspapers. Therefore we cannot act that surprised by reprisal actions such as those in a Benghazi cemetery.

What is surprising, to me at least, is why we continue to find ourselves on the same side as our supposed mortal enemy al-Qaeda. Twice in a year, in Libya and now Syria, we are supporting rebels who are also publicly backed by the terrorist organisation we have spent the last 10 years at war with.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

Really? When is it that this circular logic turns into a set of unintended consequences that have deep repercussions for current and future generations.

We only have to see how our support of the Mujaheddin in their war with the Soviet Union turned into a massive blowback and the formation of al-Qaeda. Supposedly a worldwide SPECTRE like terror group but really just the name of "the database" of disposable CIA assets that were used in that proxy war against our last mortal enemy the USSR.

What is the likelihood of blowback from our current intelligence agencies "clever" interference in Middle Eastern realpolitik?

When does the enemy of our enemy actually stay our enemy?

What number does the head count of actual real al-Qaeda terrorists as opposed to those terror acts carried out by rouge intelligence agencies and blamed on them, have to drop to before we can say the real war with terror and al-Qaeda is over?

How many times does it take it when we find ourtselves on the same side as the people we have thrown centuries worth of liberties and freedoms in the bin for, from Bosnia to Libya and now Syria, before we can safely assume that this "database" of intelligence assets is nothing more than that.

When do we come to the conclusion that al-Qaeda is not a real enemy at all but just the excuse the military industrial complex required to keep the money flowing into their pockets from the end of the cold war and into the 21st century. Peace dividend what peace dividend, we have never had so many wars in so little time.

Is it not reasonable to conclude that sometimes the conspiracy theorists just might be spot on when they claim that al-Qaeda is the perfect tool for western intelligence agencies to create just enough instability in regions of interest so that order is called for and implemented by NATO's bombs?

The conspiracy theorists are not alone here and are backed up by the "most gagged woman" in history Sibel Edmonds.

Someone who used to work as a translator for the US government and knows more secrets than she is allowed to tell. However she has often spoke of how the CIA maintained "close links" with bin Laden right up until 9.11 and used al-Qaeda as a de-stabilising tool for regions in the world the US wanted to maintain a presence.

Just the fact the US government has thrown gag order after gag order on her lends credence to her revelations and it would be very interesting to hear everything she had to say on the matter along with all the other western intelligence assets who are currently prevented from revealing information about our links to terrorist groups through official secrets acts, PATRIOT acts and security letters.

Therefore we cannot expect too much from the whistleblowers, even though we have heard plenty from people like Ray McGovern, David Shayler, Col Anthony Shaffer and many more alike who have been brave enough to stick their heads above the parapet and attacked for doing so.

One only need look at how whistleblowers are treated by supposed democratic and "free" nations to realise they are not thanked for exposing illegal activity by their own government even when they should be.

So we must look for clues in other places and there is no better a clue to how we act in the world.

Who do our nations stand next to as allies and friends?

What reasons do we go to war for and what lies do we tell to justify our actions in doing so?

Do we act with an even hand and fairly or do we hypocritically pick and chose our battles depending on other reasons such as the potential for oil or other business contracts?

Do we attack all evil or only the evil we want to?

Do we attack nations for their human rights abuses on one hand whilst allowing them to prop us up through their debt purchases and cheap imports on the other?

Is a nation only worth sacrificing our soldiers lives for if they have strong political pressure groups and lobbyists in our government or do we treat all people equally whatever the strength of their foreign spy networks and threats of exposure through blackmail?

Is it even worth asking these questions when we already know the answer to all of them and if so why do we keep electing the same kind of politician into office at every opportunity?

Is there any real alternative to our current political process or are other measures required to restore our standing in the world?

What straw or cemetery headstone has to snap before we decide to do something about it?

When does a whistle blower become a traitor?

By Dark Politricks

This week saw Private Bradley Manning finally getting his first of many days in court. It must be a relief to put some different clothes on after the many months he has spent in solitude, sometimes naked and depressed with only his thoughts to occupy his time. Some people have called his treatment a form of torture.

Whatever the outcome, and I think we all know what that will be - his fate has been decided many moons ago, the question will remain when does whistle blowing constitute traitorous activity?

If you work for a government body of any kind and you find out that someone or some group within that organisation is breaking either national law or international law by their actions should you speak out?

No matter what you think of Bradley Manning's actions it has been clear from many leaked documents and videos that war crimes have been committed by US troops during their many years of imperialistic activity.

We have had the Abu Ghraib incidents in which detainees, many who were innocent of any crime, were forced to perform humiliating and sexually degrading acts for the camera wielding jailers who claimed they were just following orders from above. Scape goats a many.

We have had the claims of torture at Gitmo in which detainees were water boarded, sometimes multiple times a day. An act the current president of the United States, US and International law calls Torture.

We have had "rouge" groups of US troops commit murder for fun. In Afghanistan a "secret kill team" went on a rampage killing several men and collecting their fingers as trophies. I doubt this was the only group doing this but it took a brave whistle blower to tell the tale.

We had the famous WikiLeaks helicopter attack on a group of Iraqi men, two of which were journalists, which shocked the world when it was released. It showed the "Playstation mentality" of the pilots who seemed to treat the massacre as nothing more than a video game where real human beings and ambulances were just targets to be shot at to gain extra points.

And the list could go on across many more years, wars and armies as atrocities are not just committed by the USA but by UK troops, Russian soldiers in Chechnya, Bosnian Serbs, Turkish and Israeli armies. No countries army is immune from the horrors and excesses of war. War crimes are committed on a daily basis and no doubt clever and influential people in the West are plotting and planning as I write trying to create plans to delay the imminent rise to dominance of China.

However we have seen what happens to people who dare to stick their head over the parapet and accuse their own government of wrong doing.

Daniel Ellsberg felt the full force of US law when he brought to the US populations attention the excesses of the Vietnam war in the Pentagon papers and Mordechai Vanunu found out what happens when you mess with the Israeli establishment who were secretly building nuclear weapons at their Dimona nuclear plant.

Ex British Spy David Shayler was jailed for his revelations that the MI6 were funding Al-Qaeda linked terrorists in a plot to kill Col Gaddafi and after 9.11 numerous whistle-blowers including the "most gagged person in history" Sibel Edmonds were prevented from telling the world what they knew about the US governments pre-knowledge of the attacks on the country.

Therefore it seems that it does not pay to be a truth teller when the goverment you serve is more interested in telling lies.

You risk a lot by going public with evidence of wrong doing when the organisation you work for treats whistle blowing as official secrets to be kept, even when they know those secrets are illegal, immoral and wrong.

We can see now how Julian Assange is being treated for daring to open a website up that allowed whistle-blowers to pass information on secretly. If the government in question can't get you then it will use it's corporatist nature and it's overseas allies to hurt you by shutting down your site, blocking funding and bank accounts and possibly even going as far as concocting false accusations of sexual molestation so that you can be character assassinated in the public domain.

To many it is clear that our supposedly free, western liberal democratic governments are nothing of the sort. The continuous swapping of power between similar political parties run or backed by millionaires and big business every few years is nothing more than the illusion of democracy being played out for the watching populous.

We can see it now in Egypt and Libya. Two countries who are supposedly now free of their tyrannical leaders and who are supposed to be embracing democracy with open arms.

In Egypt people are voting in pointless elections for a government with no power whilst the military still controls the country.

In Libya the old dictator has been replaced by a grouping of his old deputies, "ex" terrorists and other regime linked cronies who seem to be loathe to hand power back to the people.

Right now in Benghazi people are protesting about the countries interim government, the National Transitional Council, who they feel are being too slow to affect any meaningful change.

They also believe that the NTC leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil who was the ex Minister for Justice under Gaddafi is far too willing to forgive ex colleagues and Gaddafi supporters. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that as Minister for Justice he was probably personally responsible for many of the human rights abuses and crimes that went on under the old regime.

Same faces, different name. That is the game we are all playing as the world spins in turmoil and we watch protesters from Wall Street to Europe to the Middle East all try and affect change in their lives whilst our real rulers, the bankers and their cohorts shuffle the deck of politicians and make us all believe the impossible.

As Bradley Manning goes to court today, whether you agree with his actions or not, I wonder how many of us in this current climate of fear would dare to stand up and say "No", if they knew the punishment that faced them for doing so.

Would you?