Why the US didn't find WMD in Iraq and what it means

The short answer to why the US didn't find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq is, of course, that there were no WMD in Iraq. The search had an unlimited budget and it turned up zip.

The further question is, given the enormous political stakes, both for the Bush administration and US imperialism as a whole, why no WMD were planted in Iraq, when it became clear that the search would not pan out.

Anyone familiar with my writing already knows that my answer does not rely on the integrity either of the Pentagon or the Bush Administration.

I think the answer is that things like that really aren't all that easy to fake and the political consequence of being caught in that lie would have been much worst than finding no WMD at all.

In the first place any "found" WMD has to have a creditable "legend." It had to be made somewhere with materials obtained by Iraq and manufactured by people in Iraq and that legend makes it much more difficult than simply planting a load of poison in a warehouse because it will be subjected to exhaustive tests also, not just the WMD. And then there are so many people that would have to be in the loop, the chances are great that somebody would spill the beans.

I only bring this up because many people on the left seem to favor elaborate conspiracy theories to explain everything from the Arab Spring and the Libyan Revolution to the collapse of the twin towers. If ever a situation cried out for the people in power to put the fix in, it was the failure of the Bush administration to find WMD in Iraq.

Just a cautionary tale that came to mind while watching the Green Zone...

Libya's Amazigh celebrate spring festival

On Libya & Glenn Greenwald: Are the anti-interventionists becoming counter-revolutionaries?

Anybody that has ever been in an abusive relationship or supported someone in an abusive relationship may find that the period immediately after ending the relationship can be a most dangerous one. This is a truth that it well known to homicide detectives.

Even though I know this, I'd nevertheless curse the advisors that would counsel staying in an abusive relationship because of the hazards that may attend ending it. Likewise, I will call out those 'left' anti-interventionists that are now promoting counter-revolution in Libya because for years they harbored certain western 'left' mis-conceptions about Mummar Qaddafi.

For example Glenn Greenwald wrote five years ago:

It is not, of course, actually fair to compare the torture to which the prisoners in Libya were subjected to the treatment which detainees in American custody receive. After all, there is no indication that the torture of the prisoners in Libya included even a fraction of the torture which Jane Mayer, in a truly superb article in The New Yorker this week, documented was practiced by the American government under the Bush presidency in the CIA’s secret camps, i.e., “black sites,” established beyond the reach of law

With Qaddafi gone, they are now finding mass grave after mass grave in Libya. I fear they will for many years to come. Take for example, this article yesterday in the newly established Libya Herald:

Tripoli, April 2: Another mass grave has been found today, Tuesday, this time in the wadi just outside Qaddafi’s Bab Al-Aziziya barracks.

We now know that not only did Qaddafi subject his citizens to an incredible regime of torture, murdering 1270 prisoners in a matter of hours in one case, some of those self-same Bush presidency CIA "black sites" in which Greenwald thought the torture much worst than anything in Qaddafi's Libya were, in fact, being run by Qaddafi in Libya.

I think Glenn Greenwald has always harbored certain illusions about Qaddafi. That is why all last year as thousands of Libyans were fighting and dying to overthrow the Qaddafi regime, he generally spoke of regime change as something to oppose. As Bill Weinberg wrote:

This touches on a deeper contradiction in Greenwald's (and the left's) general position on Libya. From his opening paragraph, Greenwald writes as if "regime change" in Libya would be a bad thing. Entirely apart from whether "we" (what's with this use of the first-person plural to describe the US government?) have the moral credibility to bring it about, Libyans are fighting and dying for "regime change" at the moment, and Greenwald might want to offer them some encouragement, rather than implicitly loaning comfort to the dictator by dissing "regime change." And what makes it particularly tricky is that (as previously noted) there is clear rank-and-file support from the rebels—and the populace of Bengahzi, at the very least—for military intervention (see AlJazeera, March 18; SMH, March 11). Whatever US motives may be, the bombardment does seem to have saved Benghazi from a general slaughter back in March—or at least that is how it is pretty evidently and universally perceived on the ground in eastern Libya.

Clearly, Greenwald is only concerned with US motives and while he makes a strong case that Obama's actions were illegal sans congressional approval, if he could have had his way, Benghazi and Misrata would have suffered a fate similar to many Syria cities today while the world watches what a dictator can do to his people with tanks, aircraft and artillery that aren't effectively opposed.

Like just about everyone else on the left that opposed NATO intervention in the Libyan war, his point-of-view is not that of a Libyan or even what's best for Libya, his point of view is that of an American anti-imperialist that puts the US at the center of everything. Like Carl Davidson of CCDS, and many others in the anti-interventionist camp, he saw the NATO war against Libya as a remake of the Iraq War and so many other imperial adventures.

Writing about the Libyan revolution right after the liberation of Tripoli, he hearkened back to "the very first time I wrote about a possible war in Libya" and links to a piece written on March 19, 2011. By stating this he reveals two things: 1) He didn't write about the civil war in Libya until after NATO got involved, and 2) as late as August, he was not willing to acknowledge that a war was already in progress before NATO got involved.

He didn't follow the opposition before they won NATO support, so to him they will forever remain the "NATO-backed" rebels. The tag is meant to be an attack on the revolution against Qaddafi and those Libyans who made it. Even in his most recent piece on Libya, he speaks of Libya and Iraq as parallel situations:

Obviously, the Gadaffi and Saddam regimes were horrible human rights abusers. But the point is that one cannot celebrate a human rights success based merely on the invasion and overthrow of a bad regime; it is necessary to know what one has replaced them with.

Actually I think one can and should celebrate the ending of any abusive relationship even if it is unclear what the future may bring. To hear Greenwald tell it, the Libya's shouldn't have overthrown a murderous tyrant and his police state unless they knew, for sure, that everything would be peachy-keen afterwards.

Except he doesn't think it was the Libyans, who lost thousands of brave thuwar in the war and suffered many hardships to defeat Quaddafi. It was the NATO invaders, who flew a few thousand "strike soties", dropped ordinance on less than half of them, and lost no lives, that beat Qaddafi. He writes:

NATO succeeded in defeating the Mighty Libyan Army

Clearly the US invaded Iraq, they had hundred's of thousands of soldiers there for many years. Just what Greenwald considers the "invasion" of Libya not very clear unless he is referring to the invasion of Libyan air space. What is clear is that for him, in both cases the same actor, namely NATO, or the US, is the force behind the overthrow of both regimes. The revolutionary struggle of the Libya people play no role in his narrative, and even when he refers to "those who are the loudest advocates for these wars," he links to a NYTimes article by A.M. Slaughter. Well, the Libyan opposition was loudly advocating international support for their war, more than a month before Greenwald started writing about it, but he wasn't listening.

Like most in the anti-interventionist camp, Greewald probably thought that the air strikes were just a prelude to the NATO "boots on the ground" he was sure would be necessary to finish the job. Well, the Marines never landed on the shores of Tripoli this go round, but that won't stop the anti-interventionists from insisting that not only were they secretly there, but they were actually responsible for running the whole show. The Libyans were just pawns in their game.

They believed Qaddafi when he said they had captured 17 foreign special forces in Sirte, including a number of Frenchmen and Brits, video to follow. It never came. They believed the British PM when he sought to claimed credit for the Libyan victory. Although they never comment on SAS operations and offered no proof in this case, he was believed by the anti-interventionists because that is what they wanted to hear. In January, Cynthia McKinney announced that 12,000 US troops were in Malta and about to descend on Libya. It never happened.

This Monday, Mahmoud Jabril gave an interview in Benghazi and said categorically:

"we never had any foreign advisors.."

The anti-interventionists require no proof to brand him a lying Arab because what he said doesn't fit their narrative. They prefer to believe PM Cameron and the "Lawrence of Arabia" mythology about the Libya revolution. For them it was really the Rambo types that beat Qaddafi so that western oil interests could triumph, the Libya opposition, those that aren't paid agents, are just dupes.

The problem with this mythology is that Libya is a free country now. Anyone can go pretty much where they please, hundred of newspapers have sprung up, the Internet is not shut down, and a great many Libya's are strongly opposed to any foreign attempts to hijack their revolution. Remember when, early in the war, the Brits try to send in an SAS team to make contact and the thuwar arrested them? So it is very hard to believe a handful of western 'advisors' are really running the show and no Libyans are loudly complaining.

Although nobody but Cynthia McKinney is claiming that thousands of US troops are in or heading for Libya, I find it amazing the levels to which the anti-interventions will sink to "prove" that their predictions of NATO "boots on the ground" have come to pass after all. They simply can't bring themselves to say they were wrong.

While most fall back on the secret special forces theory, one commentator argued it this way:

Yes, we don't have any infantry in Benghazi. But we did have US Pilots crash landing in Libya, and their boots were indeed on the ground.

Is that what Greenwald was talking about when he talks about "invasion?" Is he one of those guys?

Since Libyan victory, Greenwald has taken the tact of reporting only negative developments from Libya and warning of dire consequents to follow because Qaddafi was overthrown:

There is nothing noble about invading and bombing a country into regime change if what one ushers in is mass instability along with tyranny and abuse by a different regime: typically one that is much more sympathetic to the invading regime-changers.

You see, in Greenwald's narrative, the Libyan regime changers are the invaders, namely NATO. So what are the Libyan revolutionaries? Chopped liver? And the NTC puppets of NATO, pure and simple?

What is the MSM saying?

Lately we have seen a flurry of articles on Libya from the main stream media that the anti-interventionist will find delightful reading because they support their counter-revolutionary position. Take, for example Derek Henry Flood's recent article in Asia Times, Arab Spring bleeds deeper into Africa, in which he blames the Libyan revolution for the current troubles in Mali, except like other anti-interventionists, he thinks NATO is the real force behind events.

You know those Qaddafi mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa that the thuwar complained about and the anti-interventionists insisted didn't exist? Well, now that they have been defeated, forced out of Libya and returned to Mali flush with Russian weapons supplied by Qaddafi, Flood puts the blame for what is now happening in Mali of those that put an end to their killing in Libya.

Flood excuses the earlier denials of African mercenary involvement, saying:

the place of sub-Saharan Africans in the Libyan war seemed more propaganda than fact at many points because of the rebel claims were most often impossible to independently verify.

They seemed more "propaganda than fact" earlier, because they didn't fit the anti-interventionist narrative. Then he goes on to accuse the NTC of mental illness because their reality was different from his beliefs:

The NTC ran a schizophrenic propaganda campaign emphasizing their fight as a colorblind one that did observably entail Libyans of all hues while constantly denouncing, in terms that seemed to stray into racism at certain points, their enemies’ exploitation of African soldiers.

Then he goes on to blame the revolution for the troubles in Mali:

Weapons, material and men move easily across porous borders, poorly thought out regime-change scenarios are imposed from outside, and assorted strong men fall throughout the developing world.
...
Colonel Gaddafi did have foreign nationals fighting alongside his troops to be sure, but their role in the war is far from clearly understood.

Understood by who? Would that be as understood by Derek Henry Flood? As understood by the by "the left"? Or as understood by the Libyan revolutionaries which as he correctly pointed out "that did observably entail Libyans of all hues?"

Gaddafi deftly positioned himself as the solution to many of Africa’s persistently unstable regions whilst often stoking these very same disputes with arms and boilerplate rhetoric about perennial Third World revolution.

Because Qaddafi had a record of "stoking.. disputes" and also pumping arms into them based on some sham ideology, he most certainly was not what he claimed to be, in fact, I would say that he had an abusive relationship with Africa.

Libya’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Gulf Cooperation Council-backed revolution threatens to destroy or at least bifurcate the wobbly Republic of Mali,

The long title he has chosen for the Libyan revolution is designed to be an attack on that revolution and clearly puts him in the camp of the counter-revolutionaries. You might counter, "well, its true." I'd say yes, but as I have already said, I think "NATO backed" deserves a * due to the two-faced, back stabbing manner in which they "supported" the revolution. That aspect of the struggle isn't even on this writer's radar. He didn't bring NATO into the description to attack NATO, he brought NATO into the description, and spelled it out, to attack the revolution.

I would also add that a great many international forces "backed" the anti-Qaddafi forces. One could just as correctly refer to Libya's Egyptian and Tunisian backed revolution, Libya's Anonymous and WikiLeaks backed revolution, and so on.

The rest of the sentence is even more of a gem, because the writer, having already gone to considerable efforts to cast doubts on the Libya opposition's claims about the number of foreign mercenaries in Libya, seeks to blame the Libyans for what these mercenaries have done since they were forced out. Its like you got yourself out of an abusive relationship and now they are going to blame you for what your ex did to someone else after they left you.

This week both the NY Times and the Washington Post have piled on with articles highlighting only negative results of the revolution. The lesson to the masses: Don't go there.

On Monday, the Washington Post published a piece saying In Libya, Despot is gone but Chaos Reigns.

In this, they focus on the struggle around Tripoli's trash problems. As usual, their main concern is the armed workers:

At the entrance to Tripoli’s main landfill, Mustafa al-Sepany stands in combat fatigues, wearing an expression that says no trash trucks will get past him. For four months, none has, leaving the country’s capital city wallowing in uncollected garbage.

Sepany is one of thousands of still-armed rebel fighters who ousted Libyan despot Moammar Gaddafi in last year’s bloody uprising. Now he is one of the residents near the landfill who are exercising their newfound freedoms by declaring they don’t want Tripoli’s trash. Anywhere but here, they say. And in post-revolution Libya, not-in-my-backyard fights come with automatic weapons.

Clearly the WashPost is more comfortable with the usual situation were only the state has the firepower and they put the dump in whatever poor part of town suites them and the residents be damned. This is what Qaddafi did.

The old landfill — built by Gaddafi 11 years ago — generated complaints among residents that it polluted waterways and bred disease.

Today, the NY Times published an article in which they worried: Libyan Militias Turn to Politics, a Volatile Mix

They are concerned that the military leaders are getting into politics:

The militia leader from Zintan who controls the airport here in the capital has exchanged his uniform for a suit and tie and now talks about running for office — with his 1,200 armed men at his back. The head of Tripoli’s military council is starting a political party, and the military council in Benghazi is preparing its own slate of candidates for local office.

The complaint about military leaders running for political office is certainly a strange one coming from an American source. Anyone remember Washington, Jackson, Grant, Eisenhower, even McCain's recent attempt?

They cite a bourgeois source, Ali Tarhuni, a former interim oil minister and deputy prime minister, who is opposed to this trend:

“We are very clearly saying we don’t want to be part of that, but down the road, what can we do?”

Then they go on to cite an Oxford University survey that concludes:

42 percent said they hoped Libya would be governed by a new strongman

The bottomline message from the MSM is that revolution is futile. That is why there is no mention of this survey:

Libyans increasingly confident about the future: survey

The survey reveals that Libyans expect to be increasingly confident about all four subject areas over time. While approximately 20 percent of respondents were confident or very confident at present, this rises to over 60 percent when asked about the next 12 months.

Levels of confidence in the longer term of 12 months were highest in regard to the economy and security. Only 25 percent of respondents were unsure about their confidence levels over the long term of 12 months, with respondents most unsure about transparency and politics.

Nor did they find the space to mention these items that may give a more balanced picture of what is going on in Libya:

Eight thousand Sirte homes assessed for compensation

Sirte, April 2: Some 8,000 homes in Sirte damaged or destroyed during the fighting last year have now been assessed for compensation. The head of the Supreme Committee for Damage Assessment in Sirte, Dr Khalifa Shawish, said on Monday that the committee had completed an inventory and assessed costs.

or this one:

Revolutionaries protecting oil fields turn professional

Tripoli, April 1: The Libyan Ministry of Defense has announced more than eight thousand revolutionaries (thuwar) have been registered to be trained as border and vital strategic locations protection guards,

These positive stories are coming out of Libya everyday but you won't hear about them from the MSM of the anti-interventionist turned counter-revolutionary because it doesn't fit their narrative.

What would Karl Marx think?

Now examining the current situation in Libya from a Marxist perspective, meaning the state includes "bodies of armed men," the state exercises a monopoly of violence, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, and so on. Taking all that on board:

At a minimum, I should think that we can all agree on some basic facts about the Libyan situation: 1.) The old regime and organs of state power have been completely overthrown, including its armed forces.[unlike Tunisia & Egypt] 2.) The new state, i.e. the NTC is very weak and in its formative stages.[ it does not exercise a monopoly of violence] 3.) Large and diverse sections of the Libyan working class are well armed and organized into what they call 'revolutionary brigades'. This is already what I would call a revolutionary situation. Libya has, in fact, emerged as the leading edge of the historic social/political phenomenon we call the Arab Spring.

It is the place where the struggle between the revolutionaries and the regime went over to armed struggle to the point of civil war first. It is the place where the old regime was defeated by a people's army and all the old institutions of state power have been completely abolished and must be recreated anew.

I've already answered those, like Greenwald, that would give the military victory to NATO. They are just showing their cynical inclinations and lack of understanding of revolutionary war or war in general. Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist has just published an excellent piece on this question: Who made Libya’s revolution?

Wars still aren't won from the air. If they were, then certainly the US would be ruling Vietnam today. Besides the NATO 'effort' in Libya was particularly pathetic. I don't believe they ever got above a 20%-50% dropped ordinance rate on what they euphemistically called "strike sorties", a fact never noted by the "left" sources that like to cite thousands of NATO "strike sorties" as "proof" that NATO was carpet bombing Libya.

Could the Libyans have won without NATO support? I don't know. Could the Americans of 1776 have won without French support? I don't know. I refuse to play those games. History is what history is. NATO had its reasons for supporting the uprising against Mummar Qaddafi just as I'm sure the French had their reasons for supporting the American Revolution. Ho Chi Minh accepted arms and training from the OSS. Revolutions require such "compromises" and they also require accepting support from non-revolutionary and even counter-revolutionary sources. Those that refuse such compromise "on principal" are dilettantes not revolutionaries.

By now, it should be clear to all that the Libyan revolutionaries made a very wise compromise when they accepted NATO air cover, but refused NATO ground troops. NATO air support stopped Benghazi and Misrata from becoming scenes of mass murder like those we are presently witnessing in Homs and Idlib. Of course the dilettantes believe they should have gone it alone no matter how many Arab lives it would have cost, "if they were really serious", but then they didn't stand to lose anyone they loved in Benghazi.

As far as the effects of the NATO air war on the civilian population of Libya is concerned, we now have some credible numbers and I feel entirely acquitted in my support for their intervention. The NYTimes was the first to publish in that area and they found that between 40 and 70 civilians had been killed by NATO. The UN did the most through report. They found 60 killed and 55 wounded. Most recently, Amnesty International claimed 55 civilians killed by NATO. These are incredibly low numbers for a war that took over 30,000 lives and in which NATO carried out more than nine thousand strike mission.

Of course, anyone is free to challenge these figures. All they have to do is document some civilians killed by NATO bombs that are not covered by these reports. Then they can overthrow these reports and make news.

And the Libyans did it with no NATO boots on the ground, in spite of NATO's best efforts to "at least" let them have Forward Air Controllers. They steadfastly refused. And there is a whole history of "friendly fire" incidents and NATO's withholding of support that the left should be writing about as far as NATO's true crimes are concerned. They won't do that because they don't even see that.

Today's NY Times article ends on a ominous note that things will end up they same anyway, i.e. revolution is futile. Look for this to be quoted by the anti-interventionists:

Former Qaddafi officials, who are also talking about forming a political party, say they hear an echo of the past. “They are speaking the same language we did,” said one former Qaddafi adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity for his safety. “We used force. They are using force. Nothing has changed but the flag and the national anthem.”

Yes, political power till grows out of the barrow of a gun. That hasn't changed and that won't change. What has changed is which class holds the gun, and the proof of it is that former Qaddafi officials have the freedom to form a political party so soon after they spent 42 years denying that right to their fellow Libyans.


Libya rallies against federalism, division March 9, 2012

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Libya

People flex power in three African Countries.

In Senegal Sunday night they were dancing in the streets as the election results came in. Very much in line with its 164 year democratic history, the president of twelve years, Abdoulaye Wade was unseated in what by most accounts was a fair and peaceful reelection. Wade who was 85 and running for a third term in spite of a two term limit, and attempting to position his son to succeed him, insisted on clinking to power in the face of widespread opposition.

At least six people were killed in the violence that accompanied mass protests in the earlier election in which Wade faced 12 opponents. For the run off, all of the opposition united around Macky Sall who received 65% of the vote to Wade's 35%. While the new president faces many challenges like high food prices and high unemployment, this was a day for the Senegalese, who took to the streets in protest a month ago, with some being martyred, to celebrate the fact they they have been able to chose new leadership.



In Mali, just next door, the story was quite different, on Monday people were out in the streets demanding that the military coup be ended and power returned to the civilian government. They were scheduled to have elections in a month but since elements of the army seized power last week, the future of the whole country has been put in doubt. The Atlanta Constitution reports:

BAMAKO, Mali — Demonstrators in Mali's capital are demanding a return to constitutional order days after mutinous soldiers claimed power in a coup.

About a thousand people, including members of youth movements and political parties, gathered Monday in central Bamako.

Some of the youth groups threatened to march on state TV and radio headquarters, which are under the junta's control.

Junta spokesman Lt. Amadou Konare on Sunday warned demonstrators to "exercise prudence" on Monday, which marks the 21-year anniversary of the last coup.

In Libya, a struggle is building up around garbage, as trash fills the streets of Tripoli. It seems that garbage has not been picked up in Libya's capital for more than a month now, the situation is becoming intolerable. Naturally, most Libyans blame the revolutionary government which is tasked with reinventing virtually all of civilian society, but the problem is more complicated than just organizing the workers and equipment to pickup the trash.

The people that live in the communities around Tripoli are flexing their revolutionary muscles as well. They feel that they have been unfairly dumped on by the city of Tripoli in the old regime and they are demanding a change. Like many communities in Libya now, they are armed and they have blockaded the dump.

From the Tripoli Post:

The Cleaning Up Tripoli team (The Cleaning Revolution), a concerned group of Tripoli residents, will be holding a demonstration in front of the government building (Prime Minister's office) in Triq al Sika at 11.00am until 2.00pm.

The demonstration will demand that the government takes drastic action to solve the garbage problem that has caused an environmental disaster in Tripoli, and call on the people to be aware of the size of the disaster that's threatening the capital and Libya in general.

Along with organising such demonstration on Saturday, the group is also interested in tackling the growing trash crises in the city. It has set up a team to combat the ever accumulating environmental issues in the city through social media, the traditional media, cleaning campaigns and other mediums to raise awareness for proper trash disposal and conservative energy use.

The group is calling on all activists to review the Facebook event invitation at: http://www.facebook.com/events/145825295540733/

They're on Twitter @CleanUpTripoli. Maybe the revolution hasn't solved yet the trash problem but at least now they can demonstrate about it without being shot at!

They were shooting in southern Libya. An armed clash between rival militias over a disputed car left 20 dead and 40 wounded in what may be the worst of such clashes since the defeat of Qaddafi. Al Jazeera reports:

Clashes between rival militias in southern Libya have killed 20 people, a doctor at a regional hospital said, highlighting the challenge the government faces in imposing its authority months after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

A local doctor, Ibrahim Misbah, said on Monday that 20 fighters died of gunshot wounds and more than 40 people were wounded.

Local council member Ahmed Abdelkadir said clashes first broke out on Sunday between former rebel fighters from Sabha, Libya's fourth largest city, and gunmen from the Tibu tribe after a Sabha man was killed in a dispute over a car.

So far armed clashes of this type have been relatively rare but this is a very serious example of what everyone fears can become a persistent problem with so many armed groups in revolutionary Libya. The article continues:

Last month dozens of people were killed in days of clashes between tribes in the far southeastern province of Al Kufra.
Government security forces eventually intervened to stop the fighting in a rare example of the Tripoli bureaucracy imposing its authority.

Abdul-Jalil said incompetent ministers may be dismissed in the coming months, but he gave no specifics.

A 200-member assembly to be elected in June has the job of appointing new cabinet ministers.

My other recent writings on Africa:
BREAKING: Wade defeated in Senegal & other Africa Updates
Mali Coup is latest post-Qaddafi fallout Fri Mar 23
What the PSL got right & wrong about KONY 2012 Sat Mar 10
African Spring continues in Senegal Mon Feb 27
Occupy Nigeria - 1st African fruits of Qaddafi gone? Tue Jan 10

Mali Coup is latest post-Qaddafi fallout

A military coup that overthrew the elected government of Mali on Thrusday became the latest repercussion of the Libyan revolution and the fall of Mummar Qaddafi to rock the continent of Africa.

Friday, Mali's coup leaders ordered soldiers to return to barracks and imposed a 6am to 6pm curfew in Barnako, the capital. All the country's borders were also closed according to Lieutenant Amadou Konare, spokesman for the National Committee for the Recovery of Democracy and the Restoration of the State, said yesterday on state television.

According to Bloomberg:

Army officers yesterday said they had toppled President Amadou Toure’s government and suspended the constitution over the state’s handling of a Touareg rebellion in northern Mali. The military formed a transitional council that will organize elections and plans to restore power to a democratically elected leader, Konare said. Mali vies with Tanzania to be Africa’s third-biggest gold producer, after South Africa and Ghana.
...
Soldiers in Mali have complained about their lack of preparation and resources in a campaign to quash a two-month uprising by the Touareg separatists who are seeking autonomous rule in northern Mali. Hundreds of soldiers’ wives last month marched on the presidential palace to protest the danger their husbands are being exposed to in the military campaign.

The coup has been widely condemned in the international community. The African Union has been joined by the UN, the US and a host of other nations in opposing it. On Friday, the AU suspended Mali's membership and former colonial power France said it was suspending cooperation with Mali. As William G Moseley, who lived in Mali for a number of years points out in his Al Jazeera opinion piece Mali's coup must be widely condemned:

While this is a Malian problem that must be resolved by the Malian people, the international community (including the Arab League, African Union and UN) must condemn the recent coup in no uncertain terms. This is not the Arab Spring moving south, but a serious backwards step for democracy in the region. Captain Sanogo and his band of thugs must be made to step aside, ATT (if he is still alive) allowed to serve out his remaining month in office, and democratic elections kept on schedule to occur in late April.

The main support for the coup appears to becoming from junior army officers that have been in the thick of the fighting against Tuareg rebels in northern Mali. The Mali army has suffered both a lost of territory and a heavy lost of life in carrying out the government's campaign against the northern rebellion and they blame the president and his government for ordering the strategy and then failing to adequately support it.

In the latest report at this hour [1:09 PST] , the Tuareg are reporting that they have just take a northern Mali town.


The Tuareg are a desert people that span parts of Mali, Niger, Chad, Libya and Algeria. They are renown as warriors and Mummar Qaddafi built a special relationship with them. In the 1980's he recruited many under the banner of the Islamic Legion and when that failed, he brought some directly into the Libyan army where a few obtained very high rank. He also used many as mercenaries.

They fought for him in his frequent wars on the African continent including in Chad, Niger, Sudan, Mali, Sudan even Lebanon and more recently they fought for him in Libya. Tuareg mercenaries were among those shooting down unarmed protesters in Benghazi in the first days of the February 17th uprising, they looted and raped and murdered in Misrata and they were among his most loyal and steadfast fighters till the end.

They took a real shellacking from NATO planes out there in the desert and now they have been relieved of service, you might say. Since September, thousands have been coming home from the fight in Libya, many of them well armed. Heavy weapons have made the journey too.

Many have joined the Tuareg struggle for self determination already in progress in that region and they have greatly energized it. This has lead to the army setbacks that have in turn now precipitated this coup. As Moseley told it:

Sadly, it was Gaddafi's guns, more than anything else, that rekindled a movement aimed at creating an independent Tuareg state known as Azawad. A pivotal moment occurred on January 24 when Tuareg rebels completely overran a Malian military base at Aguelhok, in which it was widely reported in the Malian media that all of the remaining soldiers were slaughtered after they ran out of ammunition to defend themselves. This led to a huge public outcry and, sadly, reprisals against innocent Tuareg civilians. The army also began to publically grumble that they did not have the funds they needed to fight the war in the north.

More on the Tuareg and Qaddafi

August 31, 2011, the Atlantic published a rare interview with one of Qaddafi's returning Tuareg mercenaries. The writer describes his introduction this way:

I learned about him when a Tuareg elder told me that in recent weeks more than 200 Tuareg fighters had returned from Libya to Timbuktu and the surrounding villages. He said that hundreds more had returned to other towns in eastern Mali. Local leaders were worried, he said, that these men could be the leading edge of a large wave of mercenaries returning from the fighting in Libya and that they could set a match to northern Mali’s own brittle mixture of ethnic rivalries.
....
To prove he had been in Libya he produced a document — with a passport photo attached and a stamp from the Malian consulate in Tamanrasset — identifying him as a refugee from Libya. He said that that he went to Libya in 2007 with his wife and children. They were given short-term residence papers in exchange for his enlistment in the Libyan army. He was assigned to a Tuareg brigade in the southern town of Awbari.

He remembered the beginning of the uprising, before the peaceful protests gave way to armed struggle:

When the protests began in Tripoli, his unit was attached to the infamous 32nd brigade, led by Qaddafi’s son Khamis, and was sent to disperse the unarmed marchers. “That was easy,” he said with startling nonchalance. “We would kill three or four in the front of the crowd and they all ran away. It was very easy.”

He fought throughout the revolution and said many Tuaregs were forced to fight for Qaddafi:

After Tripoli, he and his fellow Tuareg mercenaries fought in several battles east of the capital city along the coast, including at Misrata. As the fighting intensified, Libyan officials began rounding up Tuareg living in Libya, threatening to imprison them and their families if they didn’t join the fight, though many had no military training. Some deserted and joined the rebels, but most stayed with the forces loyal to Qaddafi.

While they were fierce with unarmed civilians, they were no match for NATO air power:

Abdullah’s unit moved on to Brega and then to the outskirts of Benghazi. “We were six kilometers [about four miles] from Benghazi when the first NATO bombs hit us.” First, a missile hit a vehicle carrying an artillery piece near his position and killed eight men. “We never heard it or saw it. The men just blew up.” He and his fellow soldiers were spooked. They were well trained to fight on the ground, he said. “None of us was good at shooting down airplanes."

He also confirmed Qaddafi's intention to do to Benghazi what Assad is currently doing in Homs, Idlib and many other Syria cities:

I asked about Qaddafi’s February speech, in which he pledged to hunt down protesters house by house and what his men were ordered to do if they encountered civilians. He paused before answering, “To be honest, it is true. We believed what Qaddafi told us. We believed we would go there and kill everyone.”

I asked if he had seen any civilians killed. In Misrata, he says, “We tried to find everyone there. One half of the city was cleaned.”

“What do you mean ‘cleaned?’” I asked.

“The people were killed. Women, children, everyone there.”

Now the Tuareg are worried about their future. According to Nina Intallou, representing the Kidal region on the Mali national advisory council and a Tuareg rebel and writing before Qaddafi was killed:

“The south of Libya is Touareg territory. They’re obliged to hold on to what is theirs because if Gaddafi goes, they fear what will happen to them. There’s a risk of total destabilisation in the region. Many people in Libya detest the Touareg. Before Gaddafi came to power they weren’t allowed to go to Benghazi, for example, without a special pass. So if Gaddafi’s enemies are given power, we’re really asking what will become of us. We may even face the complete disappearance of the Touareg as a people.”

Andy Morgan wrote about the Tuareg last March, in the early days of the Libyan revolution:

Gaddafi has been buying the affections and fighting skills of the nomadic tribes of the Sahara for a long time. His vision of a borderless desert, an Islamic republic of the Sahara, has often found favour with the Touareg, who have been fighting their own struggle for political self-determination and cultural recognition against the governments of Mali and Niger since independence back in 1960. Gaddafi invited young Touareg immigrants in Libya to join his Islamic Legion in the early 1980s before sending them off to fight wars in Chad, the Sudan and the Lebanon. The same Touareg soldiers then unleashed their own rebellions against Mali and Niger in the 1990s. Despite widespread suspicion that Gaddafi only ever helped the Touareg to further his own territorial schemes, many Touareg fear the consequences of his fall from power.

And he wrote prophetically a year ago:

Other Touareg leaders cite the severe political and social strain that could result from the fall of the Gaddafi regime and the consequent return of thousands of exiled Touareg from Libya to their homelands in Mali and Niger. Many of these returnees will probably be impoverished, disaffected and, what’s worse, heavily armed. Such an influx would pose a severe challenge to the already tenuous peace that exists between the Touareg and the central government of Mali in Bamako.

Qaddafi has long played on both sides of the street in Mali and he has done so to foment instability, a pattern he repeated throughout Africa:

Ironically, Gaddafi has also been investing heavily in agriculture, water infrastructure, hotels and other sectors in southern Mali, where the Touareg are seen as the enemy. Amadou Toumani Touré, the current President of Mali, was the first of many African leaders to call Gaddafi and express his support after the rebellion broke out in Libya.

At the same time:

The Libyan leader has often given financial support to ... Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, the hard line Touareg rebel leader who has refused to make peace with the Malian government, blaming Mali’s intransigence and broken promises for his uncompromising stance.

Not all Tuareg supported Qaddafi and his struggle against the revolution, according to Sheika last March:

"About 200 Touareg have been killed here because they refused to obey orders to shoot innocent protestors. And now the Touareg youth have joined the revolution against the regime…”

Morgan sums up Qaddafi' relationship with the Tuareg this way:

On the international stage, Gaddafi has often proclaimed his great affinity to the Touareg as a people. He is said to have inherited some Touareg blood from his mother, and he sees the Touareg as natural allies in his overriding ambition to create a Sahara without borders, unified by Arab culture and Islam. However, Gaddafi’s international pronouncements are in stark contrast with the way in which he has treated the Touareg and their culture in his own country. In a speech he gave in 1985, he famously claimed that mothers who taught their children Tamazight, the language of the Touareg, were injecting them with poison.

Akli Sheika, a Libyan Touareg living in exile in Britain, was imprisoned for teaching Tifinarh, the ancient Touareg alphabet, in Libyan schools. “I consider Gaddafi to be the enemy number one of the Touareg people,” he told me. “Most of the Touareg in Libya want Gaddafi to leave. Gaddafi is recruiting the Touareg by force and threatening them with violence if they don’t fight with the protestors. Many Touareg from Ghat and Ubari in the south have actually fled to Djanet in Algeria.”

The fall of Qaddafi is both good news and bad news for the people sub-Sahran Africa. They are getting the bad news first in the form of a flood of returning mercenaries and migrant workers. They are also feeling the effects of a multitude of weapons that were formerly locked up in Qaddafi's armory. This has lead to this unfortunate coup in Mali.

The good news is that they will no longer have Mummar Qaddafi first aggravating and then militarizing every conflict on the continent. Although his cachet of weapons may now be flooding Africa, they will dry up and he will no longer be a constant stream of arms, sometimes even to both sides of a conflict

With Qaddafi gone, the wick has stopped for a variety of guerrilla groups and "liberation" movements in Africa. In the short term they may feel the need to breakout with fresh offensives before the Qaddafi supplied reserves have dried up, especially if they are flush with new fighters and weapons just in from Libya. This appears to be the case in northern Nigeria and northern Mali.

But in the longer term, the removal of Qaddafi's meddling in the internal affairs, his spending of billions in Libyan petro dollars on money and arms to advance his vision, as expressed in his Green Book that:

Contemporary national liberation movements are themselves social movements; they will not come to an end before every group is liberated from the domination of another group.

And an end to his continual attempts to split African countries up in a scheme to re-unite them under his rule, is bound to lead to greater progress and liberation in Africa.

For related writing by me see also:
What the PSL got right & wrong about KONY 2012
African Spring continues in Senegal
Occupy Nigeria - 1st African fruits of Qaddafi gone?
BREAKING: Libyan's NTC pledges not to discriminate against black Africans
Racism in Libya
Helter Skelter: Qaddafi's African Adventure
Sat Mar 24, 2012 at 10:04 PM PT: The self-declared leader of the military coup Army Captain Amadou Sanogo appeal for calm and denied reports that his soldiers were looting petrol stations and state buildings. The whereabouts of President Amadou Toumani Toure are still unknown but he is rumored to be hiding on a Red Beret Army base and under the protection of loyal troops. Rumors of an imminent counter-coup are also being heard.

A joint mission of the AU and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS arrived in Bamako on Friday for negotiations with the rebels, Paul Lolo, the chairman of the Peace and Security Council, told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
"[The mission] is in negotiations with the rebels and it is our hope that they will listen to reason and return Mali to constitutional order without delay," he said.
"This [coup] has been an insurgency, a seizure of power by force. There was a legitimate government in Mali. That government is still legitimate in our view because that is the government we know according to our instruments."

Meanwhile the Tuareg are using of this disorder to make military gains in the north. They have launched a new offensive and could soon be marching on Timbuktu if not opposed.

My Best Tweets

I really didn't pay much attention to Twitter until the Arab Spring broke out and forced me to take it seriously. Now I find it the most vital of all the social media services.

I signed up for Facebook MySpace and Twitter all on the same day at some time in the distance past because I had decided it was time to do the social media thing. I spent a lot of time customizing my MySpace page because it could do html and so could I, then I let it fall by the wayside.

Facebook became my social media center. In addition to my own wall, I built a Vietnam: American Holocaust movie page and eventually made over two thousand "friends."

For years, about the only thing I did with Twitter was to use the button that appeared above my posts here at the Daily Kos to tweet out each new diary to my 30 or so followers but in the course of following the quickly unfolding events in North Africa last year I found Twitter to be the most important source of information and the most vital form of communication.

I also found it to be a challenging format to write for. Just 140 characters, 20 less if you include a link and the challenge is to say something with meaning and elegance in that small space. I compose a tweet as though I am writing a 21th century haiku, and on this rainy Saturday in Venice Beach, I thought I'd share what I consider some of my best tweets from the last year with my readers here who are use to me going on ad nauseam about a subject. This is one I just send this morning:

#Assad's soldiers murder women & children in #Syria because for them its a case of kill or be killed <- data-blogger-escaped-behind.="" data-blogger-escaped-blockquote="" data-blogger-escaped-from="">Find more beneath the fold.

1st they burnt the books, then they burnt the bodies. The US in #Afghanistan or ??

#Idlib, #Syria is what #Benghazi, #Libya would have been if the anti-interventionists could have ruled the day

According to #UN, #NATO killed 60 civilians in #Libya during the war, now #Assad kills that many in #Syria everyday. #BloodOnTheirHands

Yes, #KCAL News, 16 is "more than a dozen" but why the discount? Is it because the killer is a US soldier & the victims #Afghanistan?

if Kofi Annan saw a bear attacking a child he would say "You two stop fighting!" #Syria #BloodOnTheirHands

Are #Assad's soldiers killing with knives because he is afraid to give them ammunition? #Syria #BooldOnHisHands

Syrious BS: RT shows pix of passports of alleged foreign fighters in #Syria. Why no pictures? Why not open the passports and show who?

#Russia, If a bear attacks a kid, naturally the kid will fight back, but would you describe it as a fight between a bear and a kid? #Syria

#Assad will allow the Red Cross to enter #BabaAmr as soon as there are no civilians left there to help #BloodOnHisHands #Syria

When woman yells "No War on #Iran" #Obama responds "You're jumping the gun a little bit." Now what does that mean???

#SoCalledSocialists: You don't present the working class if you will suffer in silence any part of it murdered by its ruling class. #Syria

In #Santorum World: Church schools need no Earthquake retrofit if clergy says Lord is their Earthquake protection. #thisweek

"Pres has 12,000 US troops in Malta about to make their descent into #Libya." It's been over a month #CynthiaMcKinney What's up with that?

Whenever u find ppl fighting 4 freedom you'll find CIA&MI6 just like feas on lions but it's ridulous 2 credit the fleas 4 feats of the lion.

#Russian tanks, #Russian guns & #Russian shells, some most likely recently delivered are doing #Assad 's killing in #Homs #Syria

Artilley bombing of #Homs reportly resumes as #Assad applies #Russia tactics: Why send a solider where a shell could go? #BloodOnTheirHands

I feel a grt disturbance in the Force as if 1000s of voices cried out & were suddenly silenced. Something terrible is happening #Homs #Syria

#China doesn't want to see a repeat of #Libya in #Syria (were regime tanks were prevented from entering the city & killing house to house.)

#NATO lacks appetite for intervention in #Syria because they didn't get what they wanted from intervention in #Libya #Feb17

What the anti-interventionists wanted for Benghazi, #Libya, we are now seeing in Homs, #Syria #BloodOnTheirHands #BloodySunday

#Syria 150 ppl/day murdered by own govt while world sits on its hands. Shameful! Absolutely Shameful!

Anti-interventionists, remember when MLK Jr. et al cheered martial law in Montegomery? But you were opposed, weren't you?

#BlackBloc as a tactic is like a lap. Stand up, your lap disappears the way any "tactic" applied w/o regard to reality ceases to be a tactic

#Windows is an OS created by a corporation for profit. #Linux is an OS created by a community for service.

Shouldn't they be kettling the Tea Party and not the #Occupy movement?

The courage of the Syrian people is incredible. The silent support for #Assad from the US left is disgusting. #Syria

"What happened in #Tunisia most likely will stay in Tunisia" James Zogby 22/01/11 Oops!

Many species were lost forever because God ordered Noah to load only 2 of each aboard the ark and not all of God's creatures are fertile :-)

Supicious bombs explode in Damascus prove Assad's point as Arab League arrive in Syria. Like 911, AQ is blamed minutes later. Cui Bono

#VictoriaSecrets say child labor cotton is only used in a "small portion" of its clothing but VS only makes clothing in small portions

17/12/10 -17/9/11 #OWS was born precisely 9 months after Mohamed Bouazizi felt the fire while planting the seed. He is the father of #Occupy

We tried to do a GA in jail, but when we said we were going to breakout groups, they put us on lockdown. [joke] #OccupyLA #OccupyWallSt

When Lenin said "nobody can discredit the communists if they don't discredit themselves" was he talking about Stalin or Trotsky or both?

Marketing #OWS, Any day now I expect the 99cent only store to change its name to #99% only store, And start raising its prices #OccupyLA

Have solution to contenious General Assembly problem. Talked with Keeping it Real Party about setting up the Hard Block Cafe @ #OccupyLA

Some "leftists" use historic Libyan racism as a weapon against the revolution, I see the revolution as a weapon against racism #Libya #Feb17

#ANSWER says "oppose the demonization campaigns underway against #Syria" Does that mean they favor the shelling of civilians?

Jeff Goldblum to #FF "Be sure to scrape that 'War Is Not The Answer' sticker off the bumper before mounting the rockets in the bed"

ANSWER, CCDS and other anti-interventionists: Here is a complete list of anti-NATO protests in Arab or Muslim countries - "" #Feb17 #Libyan

Russia is now recognizing "armed gangs" as the legit representatives of the Libyan people. The times they are a'changing #Feb17 #Libya

#NATO u did a good thing. Don't blow it by sticking around and making mischief. Thank You. Good Bye. #feb17 #Libya

Now that there are no more dragons to slay, there is really nothing for NATO to do but fly off into the sunset.

I'm so sick of hearing about #Libya "stalemate." Have u noticed that this "stalemate" keeps inching closer to Tripoli all the time! #Feb17

They're a lot of chess metaphors in #Feb17 but 'stalemate' ain't one of them. Qaddafi thinks he's the king & treats ppl like pawns #Feb17

stalemate? #Gharyan check! #Tawargha check #Zawiya check! #Garyan check! stalemate? I don't see any stalemate #Libya #Feb17

#FF the word on the tweet is that #Qaddafi has a surprise waiting for you in #Tripoli tomorrow. Be aware #Feb17 #Libya

#Libya loses Younes, #Tahrir loses unity. Revolution is a messy business but reports of the death of the Arab Spring are premature

#Libya - Where some see naked imperialist aggression, I see a slick imperialist response to revolutionary upsurge #feb17

Does NATO want to force key members of old regime on the revolution? Is that what they mean by "negotiated settlement?" #Libya #feb17

#France's Catch 22: Civilians have a right to self-defence but once they are armed they cease to be civilians. #Libya #Feb17 #Nafusa

Is NATO using Qaddafi to discipline the freedom fighters because they will not be co-opted? Just a question #Libya #Feb17

#Japan fishrman, We've good news & bad news. Good news is ur boat survived the tsunami. Bad news is u can't use it cause we nuked the fish

They said my radiation exposure was less than a chest xray. I said "how so?" They said a chest xray cost $$$, the rads cost me nothing!

The keyboard is mightier than the Kalashnikov - update to an old truth #Libya #Egypt #Tunisia #feb17 #jan25 #Anonymous

US UK & EU are hoping Gaddfi will restore the status quo and the oil flow. That's why they take no action. Count on it! #Libya #feb17

Why did that Libyan pilot eject? Is Gaddfi making sure they don't have fuel for Malta now? #Libya #feb17

What is Obama waiting for? He's waiting for Gaddfi to succeed. If the flowing blood keeps the oil flowing, he's for it. #Libya #Feb17

"If it takes a bloodbath to silence the demonstrators, let's get it over with." Who said this? hint M. Gaddfi likes Reagan #Libya #Feb17

If all the UN is going to go is 'fact finding' They should wait till Gaddfi is done killing and avoid the need for a recount. #Libya #feb17

The longer they rule, the faster they fall. #Tunisia Ben Ali 23 yrs & 28 days, #Egypt Mubarak 30 yrs & 18 days, #Libya Gaddfi 42yrs & ? days