The new face of war: A female general commands the U.S. air campaign in Libya 2011

This is the general overseeing the American part of the air campaign in Libya. Air Force Maj. Gen. Margaret Woodward, commander of the 17th Air Force, based in Germany, seems to be an expert in refueling and mobility, which is probably why she was picked for Africa Command, whose planners likely expected the command mainly to be doing humanitarian relief missions. Instead she is overseeing airstrikes by B-2 bombers, F-15E fighter/bombers, and F-16 CJ jammers.

To my knowledge, this is the first time a woman has ever overseen an air campaign.

Libya War/ANALYSIS - Libya is biggest gamble yet for France's Sarkozy

* Sarkozy determined to be seen leading action on Libya

* Sarkozy ranked 3rd in some opinion polls for 2012 election

* President risking backlash if Libya mission goes awry

By Catherine Bremer

PARIS, March 22 (Reuters) - Plagued by ruinous poll ratings a year before a likely re-election battle, French President Nicolas Sarkozy pulled off a public relations coup by leaping into the driving seat of the intervention in Libya.

His glory could be short-lived though if what first looked like a heroic operation to save civilians ends up pulling France and its partners into a lengthy and complex foreign conflict.

A rift between Western powers who back the Libyan operation and developing countries who oppose it -- and bickering about who should run it -- raises the spectre of disastrous consequences for the action-man leader if things go awry.

"This is a gamble he's taken and I think it was mainly for domestic reasons," said political analyst Jacques Reland of the Global Policy Institute. "He's a man who doesn't let an opportunity go by, but this could end up as a quagmire. It's very risky and this could be make or break for him."

Waging a foreign war is not an obvious way to win support among the conflict-wary French, but Sarkozy had made it clear he would show leadership over Libya to make up for clumsy handling of the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt.

Muammar Gaddafi made an appropriate target too after Sarkozy came under fire in France for rolling the red carpet out to the Libyan leader in 2007 and letting him pitch his Bedouin-style tent by the Elysee Palace.

That state visit, Gaddafi's first in decades to a Western leader, came after Sarkozy helped get five Bulgarian nurses freed from a Libyan jail in one of a string of swashbuckling foreign missions since he came to power in 2007.

Opinion polls show Sarkozy has now fallen behind far-right leader Marine Le Pen as well as veteran leftists. Ratings below 30 percent make him one of France's least popular presidents ever.

Sarkozy saw France's year-long presidency of the G20 and G8 as opportunities for international grandstanding but has been hampered by a tough debate on his global monetary reform plans and by his poor early handling of unrest in North Africa.

Now he hopes the sight of him summoning world leaders to Paris and being the one to come out and announce action to save Libyans from bloodshed will fill French hearts with national pride.

"The president loves crises with their concomitant surge of adrenalin," Dominique Moisi of the French Institute for International Relations was quoted as saying in a blog.

"Sarkozy is taking a high but legitimate risk that he can retake the moral (and political) high ground."

FAILURE COULD HURT

The possibility of his Libya initiative coming back to bite him is looming larger as the dust settles from the first French strikes, which were minutes away from happening as Sarkozy announced on Saturday that fighter jets were over Libya.

His decision to charge ahead with action within hours of U.N. approval has set off a raft of divisions. Opposition is mounting from China, Russia, Brazil, India and others, and the West is arguing about what role NATO should take in the operation as the United States steps back.

Even before France deployed its jets, Sarkozy's breathless pace of action, coming out early to recognize the rebel opposition and mooting the idea of targeted strikes, irked Germany, which ended up declining to participate.

A chief influence on Sarkozy this month was philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, who flew to Libya on a fact-finding mission and telephoned Sarkozy from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

Sarkozy unveiled the operation in a solemn speech alone at a lectern and left world figures like U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to arrange private media briefings.

"I do not like the way it was stage-managed," said Reland.

"What makes me ill at ease is whether there was really a danger of massacres in Benghazi. We don't know enough about these insurgents and we don't know enough about Libya."

On Tuesday, Sarkozy made a flying visit to a French air base on the Mediterranean island of Corsica with his defence minister.

France defended itself on Tuesday against reports of rifts with its allies, saying its armed forces chief had told its partners in full about the strikes it planned in Libya.

"The heads of the armed forces of France, Britain and America were in close coordination. Our counterparts were kept up to date on all our intentions and did not show any objections," armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard said.

International divisions aside, it is unclear whether Sarkozy stands to gain as much from a successful Libyan intervention as he stands to lose if it all goes wrong.

A survey conducted by pollster IFOP on March 10, before the U.N. resolution on a no-fly zone, found only 30 percent of respondents would support French military action in Libya, compared with 55 percent who in a 2001 poll backed action in Afghanistan. A fresh IFOP poll on Tuesday found 66 percent of French people supported the coalition's Libya intervention.

"It's not the main preoccupation of the French," said IPSOS head Jean-Francois Doridot. Preoccupied by economic gloom, voters might worry about repercussions by terror groups.

Surprisingly few opposition politicians have accused Sarkozy of engineering the operation's timing for political reasons, one exception being National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen who is harbouring dreams of seeing his daughter as French president.

"Everyone knows that when things aren't going very well on the home front that's when you get the flag out, sound the bugle," Le Pen told France 2 television on Tuesday.

"You bang the drum to play on people's patriotic reflexes but for us, at any rate, it will not work at all." (Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage and John Irish; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Libya/Crisys: Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi Forces Move on Town Near Rebel-Held Benghazi

AJDABIYA, Libya — Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi advanced Sunday on this anxious town, a strategic linchpin on the doorstep of the opposition capital of Benghazi and within grasp of a highway crucial to recapturing the eastern border and encircling the rebellion with heavy armor and artillery.

After another day of headlong retreat, this time from the refinery and port at Brega, one town west of here, the rebels prepared for what some called a last stand at Ajdabiya, taking refuge in military barracks where they stacked ammunition boxes six deep, positioned a handful of tanks and tried to bring order to a jumble of small artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Bulldozers built berms three feet high near a pair of green, metal arches that mark the town’s entrance.

The fate of Ajdabiya, an eastern town of 120,000 near the Mediterranean coast, may prove decisive in the most violent and chaotic of the uprisings that have upended the Arab world. Under a sky turned gray by a menacing sandstorm, the rebels valiantly vowed victory but acknowledged the deficit posed by their weapons and pleaded for a no-flight zone that seemed a metaphor for any kind of international help.

“Our retreat is a tactic,” said Said Zway, 29, a civil engineer-turned-fighter, at Ajdabiya’s entrance. “We can wait until they impose a no-fly zone. If they don’t, what can we do, my friend? We fight and die. God is with us, God willing.”

¶From its ecstatic beginning, Libya’s uprising has taken a darker turn, as Colonel Qaddafi’s forces have recaptured Zawiyah, near Tripoli, and are now besieging Misurata, a commercial capital and an oasis of rebel control in the west. Officials in Tripoli talk with bluster, and a more sullen mood has settled over Benghazi, where reports of lawlessness grow.

¶The United Nations Security Council may take up this week an Arab League call for a no-flight zone over Libya, a decision that Colonel Qaddafi’s government deemed Sunday an “unexpected departure” from the league’s charter. The foreign ministers of major industrial nations are expected to consider the topic at a meeting in Paris on Monday. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to fly on to Egypt and Tunisia afterward, and is expected to meet with Libyan opposition leaders.

¶But a front line that shifted eastward by the day and plunging morale here threatened to outpace a decision that still faces opposition from Russia and China and lacks the clear support of the United States and Europe.

¶The debate abroad overshadowed the stark reality on the ground — planes alone have not defeated the rebels, but rather a relentless onslaught of tanks, artillery, helicopters and ships at sea has sent rebels hurtling back the past several days from a series of oil towns along Libya’s flat, virtually indefensible coastal plain.

¶At the front, pleas for foreign help have grown by the day, from demands for a no-flight zone to growing calls for bombing of Libyan ships at sea, military bases and Bab al-Aziziya, the compound in Tripoli that serves as Colonel Qaddafi’s headquarters.

¶“We demand intervention from America, from Britain, from France!” shouted Wanis Kayhani, 42, a fighter waiting in a parked Toyota pickup near the front. “I personally want them to send troops from abroad to stop this dictator. I swear to God almighty!”

¶“No, no, that won’t work!” another fighter shouted.

¶“Whatever it takes,” Mr. Kayhani replied.

¶Libya’s former interior minister, Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, appeared unexpectedly before reporters in Benghazi on Sunday evening in his role as the new head of the rebel army and promised a vigorous defense of Ajdabiya, calling it a “key” city.

¶Once a close ally of Colonel Qaddafi and head of the country’s special forces, General Younes resigned his post in late February to join the rebels. He said that he had spent days at the front lines and acknowledged that opposition fighters had overextended: they advanced “too far, too fast and did not protect the areas they gained,” he said.

¶Striking an optimistic note, though, he cast the setbacks as a strategic decision.

¶“War is a matter of advance and tactical withdrawal,” he said. “What we are trying to do is lure him into an area where we can even the fight.”

¶The day began with military vehicles, ambulances, cars and pickup trucks loaded with everything from anti-aircraft guns to a coat rack fleeing Brega, which rebels held just Saturday. Winds blew sand across the street like drifting snow, as rebel trucks and cars hurtled down both lanes of a two-lane road toward an old sign that read, “Warning ... speeding is the quickest way to die.” There was no traffic going the other way.

¶They regrouped at the entrance to Ajdabiya, where only last week jubilant crowds of many hundreds had beckoned convoys of fighters west to Tripoli.

¶“We are going to defend Ajdabiya now, we have to defend Ajdabiya,” said Massoud Bousier, a 36-year-old fighter who fled Brega. “He has a tank and we have a stone. This Kalashnikov,” he said, raising his rifle, “does nothing. This is like a stone.”

¶So far, the strategy of an invigorated, though no less bizarre Colonel Qaddafi, absolute ruler here for nearly 42 years, has proven clear. With little regard for life, he has pummeled into submission rebel-held towns in his traditional stronghold of the west — Surt and Misuratah among them — and deployed to the east forces believed loyal to his sons to recapture strategic oil towns between his birthplace of Surt and Ajdabiya.

¶Ajdabiya is most strategic for its location, 100 miles from Benghazi and perched on a highway that bypasses eastern Libya’s coastal cities and cuts straight to the border with Egypt, which rebels have lightly defended. It was still unclear whether Colonel Qaddafi would try to take the city in a bloody battle or bypass it en route to Benghazi and the highway.

¶General Younes said he hoped Colonel Qaddafi’s forces would overextend as they advance, and many rebels speculated that his army was already running short on fuel.

¶Even in regions he controls, his rule remains contested. Women organized a small protest in the capital on Sunday, witnesses said, and a rebel spokesman in Misurata said 30 soldiers had defected from a brigade organized by Colonel Qaddafi’s son, Khamis, that has besieged the city.

¶But optimism was in short supply on the rebel side, and officials in Tripoli boasted they would quickly and easily, as they put it, liberate Benghazi, where the opposition has formed a state in waiting.

¶“You do not need a full-scale military attack because when we come to them, they just raise their hands and give up,” said Col. Minad Hussein, a military spokesman.

¶At the edge of Ajdabiya, rebels tried to bring military discipline to the throngs of fervent youth who have volunteered to fight. Gates were closed to two makeshift military bases, where hundreds of boxes of ammunition were stacked in a sprawling courtyard. Volunteers filled dozens of sandbags that were lined behind berms and not yet tied shut.

¶On loudspeakers, rebel leaders urged the curious to leave.

¶“If you don’t have a tank or a heavy weapon, go back home,” one shouted.

¶Rumors swirled — that rebel special forces had encircled government forces in Brega after nightfall, that 8,000 volunteers were coming under cover of night from Benghazi and that Colonel Qaddafi was deploying mercenaries from Egypt. A fear of the unknown endemic to wartime rippled through a town of dull buildings interspersed with pastels of pink, orange and green. Doctors reported shortages of equipment at the hospital, and residents stocked up on infant formula, medicine and food.

¶“When you start fighting, do you think how it’s going to end?” asked Mr. Zway, the engineer. “You don’t. There is no chance to go back now, believe me. Believe me.”

¶A little ways away, near the bulldozer that build the sand embankment, a smiling Abdel-Salam Maatouk sat with friend and drank tea boiled on a small fire.

¶“You live how many times?” he asked. “Once. You die how many times? Once.”

¶His friends nodded, as he offered a smiling soliloquy: “We’ll draw the line at Ajdabiya. And then from there to Surt and then to Tripoli. God willing, I’ll be able to shout chants at Martyrs’ Square in Tripoli, and I’ll be able to do that on a day soon.”

¶Maybe it did not really matter that he could say it tomorrow. He said it today. And as he did, the tea may have tasted a little sweeter and the campfire felt a

¶Kareem Fahim in Benghazi and David D. Kirkpatrick in Tripoli contributed reporting.

By ANTHONY SHADID/Nyt

Libya/Crisys: NATO, war, lies and business

REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL -  (Taken from CubaDebate)

AS some people know, in September of 1969, Muammar al-Gaddafi, a Bedouin Arab soldier of unusual character and inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, promoted within the heart of the Armed Forces a movement which overthrew King Idris I of Libya, almost a desert country in its totality, with a sparse population, located to the north of Africa between Tunisia and Egypt.

Libya’s significant and valuable energy resources were progressively being discovered.

Born into the heart of a Bedouin community, nomadic desert shepherds in the region of Tripoli, Gaddafi was profoundly anti-colonialist. It is known that a paternal grandfather died fighting against the Italian invaders when Libya was invaded by the latter in 1911. The colonial regime and fascism changed everyone’s lives. It is likewise said that his father was imprisoned before earning his daily bread as an industrial worker.

Even Gaddafi’s adversaries confirm that he stood out for his intelligence as a student; he was expelled from high school for his anti-monarchical activities. He managed to enroll in another school and later to graduate in law at the University of Benghazi, aged 21. He then entered the Benghazi Military College, where he created the Union of Free Officers Movement, subsequently completing his studies in a British military academy.

These antecedents explain the notable influence that he later exercised in Libya and over other political leaders, whether or not they are now for or against Gaddafi.

He initiated his political life with unquestionably revolutionary acts.

In March 1970, in the wake of mass nationalist protests, he achieved the evacuation of British soldiers from the country and, in June, the United States vacated the large airbase close to Tripoli, which was handed over to military instructors from Egypt, a country allied with Libya.

In 1970, a number of Western oil companies and banking societies with the participation of foreign capital were affected by the Revolution. At the end of 1971, the same fate befell the famous British Petroleum. In the agricultural sector all Italian assets were confiscated, and the colonialists and their descendants were expelled from Libya.

State intervention was directed toward the control of the large companies. Production in that country grew to become one of the highest in the Arab world. Gambling was prohibited, as was alcohol consumption. The legal status of women, traditionally limited, was elevated.

The Libyan leader became immersed in extremist theories as much opposed to communism as to capitalism. It was a stage in which Gaddafi devoted himself to theorizing, which would be meaningless to include in this analysis, except to note that the first article of the Constitutional Proclamation of 1969, established the "Socialist" nature of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

What I wish to emphasize is that the United States and its NATO allies were never interested in human rights.

The pandemonium that occurred in the Security Council, in the meeting of the Human Rights Council based in Geneva, and in the UN General Assembly in New York, was pure theater.

I can perfectly comprehend the reactions of political leaders embroiled in so many contradictions and sterile debates, given the intrigue of interests and problems which they have to address.

All of us are well aware that status as a permanent member, veto power, the possession of nuclear weapons and more than a few institutions, are sources of privilege and self-interest imposed on humanity by force. One can be in agreement with many of them or not, but never accept them as just or ethical measures.

The empire is now attempting to turn events around to what Gaddafi has done or not done, because it needs to militarily intervene in Libya and deliver a blow to the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world. Through now not a word was said, silence was maintained and business was conducted.

Whether a latent Libyan rebellion was promoted by yankee intelligence agencies or by the errors of Gaddafi himself, it is important that the peoples do not let themselves be deceived, given that, very soon, world opinion will have enough elements to know what to believe.

In my opinion, and as I have expressed since the outset, the plans of the bellicose NATO had to be condemned.

Libya, like many Third World countries, is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77 and other international organizations, via which relations are established independently of economic and social system.

Briefly: the Revolution in Cuba, inspired by Marxist-Leninist and Martí principles, had triumphed in 1959 at 90 miles from the United States, which imposed the Platt Amendment on us and was the proprietor of our country’s economy.

Almost immediately, the empire promoted against our people dirty warfare, counterrevolutionary gangs, the criminal economic blockade and the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, guarded by an aircraft carrier and its marines ready to disembark if the mercenary force secured certain objectives.

Barely a year and a half later, it threatened us with the power of its nuclear arsenal. A war of that nature was about to break out.

All the Latin American countries, with the exception of Mexico, took part in the criminal blockade which is still in place, without our country ever surrendering. It is important to recall that for those lacking historical memory.

In January 1986, putting forward the idea that Libya was behind so-called revolutionary terrorism, Reagan ordered the severing of economic and commercial relations with that country.

In March, an aircraft carrier force in the Gulf of Sirte, within what Libya considered its national waters, unleashed attacks which destroyed a number of naval units equipped with rocket launchers and coastal radar systems which that country had acquired in the USSR.

On April 5, a discotheque in West Berlin frequented by U.S. soldiers was the target of a plastic explosives attack, in which three people died, two of them U.S. soldiers, and many people were injured.

Reagan accused Gaddafi and ordered the Air Force to respond. Three squadrons took off from 6th Fleet aircraft carriers and bases in the United Kingdom, and attacked with missiles and bombs seven military targets in Tripoli and Benghazi. Some 40 people died, 15 of them civilians. Warned in advance of the bombardments, Gaddafi gathered together his family and was leaving his residence located in the Bab Al Aziziya military complex south of the capital. The evacuation had not been completed when a missile directly hit the residence, his daughter Hanna died and another two of his children were wounded. That act was widely rejected; the UN General Assembly passed a resolution of condemnation given what was a violation of the UN Charter and international law. The Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League and the OAU did likewise in energetic terms.

On December 21, 1988, a Pan Am Boeing 747 flying from London to New York disintegrated in full flight when a bomb exploded aboard, the wreckage fell on the locality of Lockerbie and the tragedy cost the lives of 270 people of 21 nationalities.

Initially, the United States suspected Iran, in reprisal for the death of 290 people when an Airbus belonging to its state line was brought down. According to the yankees, investigations implicated two Libyan intelligence agents. Similar accusations against Libya were made in the case of the French airline on the Brazzaville-N’Djamena-Paris route, implicating Libyan officials whom Gaddafi refused to extradite for acts that he categorically denied.

A sinister legend was fabricated against him, with the participation of Reagan and Bush Senior.

From 1975 to the final stage of the Regan administration, Cuba dedicated itself to its internationalist duties in Angola and other African nations. We were aware of the conflicts developing in Libya or around her via readings and testimonies from people closely linked to that country and the Arab world, as well as impressions we retained from many figures in different countries with whom we had contact during those years.

Many known African leaders with whom Gaddafi maintained close relations made efforts to find a solution to the tense relations between Libya and the United Kingdom.

The Security Council had imposed sanctions on Libya which began to be overcome when Gaddafi agreed to the trial, under specific conditions, of the two men accused of the plane sabotage over Scotland.

Libyan delegations began to be invited to inter-European meetings. In July 1999 London initiated the reestablishment of full diplomatic relations with Libya after some additional concessions.

In September of that year, European Union ministers agreed to revoke the restrictive trade measures imposed in 1992.

On December 2, Massimo D’Alema, the Italian prime minister, made the first visit to Libya by a European head of government.

With the disappearance of the USSR and the European socialist bloc, Gaddafi decided to accept the demands of the United States and NATO.

When I visited Libya in May 2001, he showed me the ruins left by the treacherous attack during which Reagan murdered his daughter and almost exterminated his entire family.

In early 2002, the State Department announced that diplomatic talks between the United States and Libya were underway.

In May, Libya was once again included on the list of states sponsoring terrorism although, in January, President George W. Bush had not mentioned the African country in his famous speech on members of the "axis of evil."

At the beginning of 2003, in accordance with the economic agreement on compensation reached between Libya and the plaintiffs, the United Kingdom and France, the UN Security Council lifted its 1992 sanctions against Libya.

Before the end of 2003, Bush and Tony Blair reported an agreement with Libya, which had submitted documentation to British and U.S. intelligence experts about conventional weapons programs and ballistic missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers. Officials from both countries had already visited a number of installations. It was the result of many months of conversation between Tripoli and Washington, as Bush himself revealed.

Gaddafi kept his disarmament promises. Within five months Libya handed over the five units of Scud-C missiles with a range of 800 km and hundreds of Scud-B which have a range exceeding the 300 kilometers of defensive short-range missiles.

As of October, 2002, a marathon of visits to Tripoli began: Berlusconi, in October 2002; José María Aznar, in September 2003; Berlusconi again in February, August and October of 2004; Blair, in March of 2004; the German Schröeder, in October of that year; Jacques Chirac, November 2004. Everybody happy. Money talks.

Gaddafi toured Europe triumphantly. He was received in Brussels in April of 2004 by Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission; in August of that year the Libyan leader invited Bush to visit his country; Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Texaco and Conoco Philips established renewed oil extraction operations through joint ventures.

In May of 2006, the United States announced the removal of Libya from its list of nations harboring terrorists and established full diplomatic relations.

In 2006 and 2007, France and the U.S. signed accords for cooperation in nuclear development for peaceful ends; in May, 2007, Blair returned to visit Gaddafi in Sirte. British Petroleum signed a contract it described as "enormously important," for the exploration of gas fields.

In December of 2007, Gaddafi made two trips to France to sign military and civilian equipment contracts for 10 billion euros, and to Spain where he met with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Contracts worth millions were signed with important NATO countries.

What has now brought on the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. and other NATO members' embassies?

It all seems extremely strange.

George W. Bush, father of the stupid anti-terrorist war, said on September 20, 2011 to west Point cadets, "Our security will require … the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world. … to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.

"We must root out terrorist cells in 60 countries or more … with our friends and allies, we have to stop their proliferation and confront regimes which harbor or support terrorism, as is required in each case."

What might Obama think of that speech?

What sanctions will the Security Council impose on those who have killed more than a million civilians in Iraq and those who everyday are murdering men, women and children in Afghanistan, where just recently the angry population took to the streets to protest the massacre of innocent children?

An AFP dispatch from Kabul, dated today, March 9, reveals, "Last year was the most lethal for civilians in the nine-year war between the Taliban and international forces in Afghanistan, with almost 2,800 deaths, 15% more than in 2009, a United Nations report indicated on Wednesday, underlining the human cost of the conflict for the population.

"… The Taliban insurrection has intensified and gained ground in these last few years, with guerrilla actions beyond its traditional bastions in the South and East.

"At exactly 2,777, the number of civilian deaths in 2010 increased by 15% as compared to 2009," the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan annual report indicated.

"On March 3, President Barack Obama expressed his profound condolences to the Afghan people for the nine children killed, as did U.S. General David Petraeus, commander in chief of the ISAF and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

"… The UNAMA report emphasizes that the number of civilian deaths is four times greater than the number of international forces soldiers killed in combat during the same year.

"So far, 2010 has been the most deadly for foreign soldiers in the nine years of war, with 711 dead, confirming that the Taliban's guerilla war has intensified despite the deployment of 30,000 U.S. reinforcements last year."

Over the course of 10 days, in Geneva and in the United Nations, more than 150 speeches were delivered about violations of human rights, which were repeated million of times on television, radio, Internet and in the written press.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, in his remarks March 1, 2011 before Foreign Relations ministers in Geneva, said:

"Humanity's conscience is repulsed by the deaths of innocent people under any circumstances, anyplace. Cuba fully shares the worldwide concern for the loss of civilian lives in Libya and hopes that its people are able to reach a peaceful and sovereign solution to the civil war occurring there, with no foreign interference, and guarantee the integrity of that nation."

Some of the final paragraphs of his speech were scathing.

"If the essential human right is the right to life, will the Council be ready to suspend the membership of states that unleash war?

"Will it suspend states which finance and supply military aid utilized by recipient states for mass, flagrant and systematic violations of human rights and attacks on the civilian population, like those taking place in Palestine?

"Will it apply measures to powerful countries which are perpetuating extra-judicial executions in the territory of other states with the use of high technology, such as smart bombs and drone aircraft?

"What will happen with states which accept secret illegal prisons in their territories, facilitate the transit of secret flights with kidnapped persons aboard, or participate in acts of torture?

We fully share the valiant position of the Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

We are against the internal war in Libya, in favor of immediate peace and respect for the lives and rights of all citizens, without foreign intervention, which would only serve to prolong the conflict and NATO interests.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 9, 2011

9:35 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

Libya: 'Gaddafi will prevail', says Barack Obama's intelligence chief

James Clapper's remarks came as the Dow Jones index fell 228 points

London - James Clapper, the director of US national intelligence, told the Senate armed services committee “the regime will prevail”, forcing the White House into an embarrassing damage control exercise.

“With respect to the rebels in Libya, and whether or not they will succeed or not, I think frankly they’re in for a tough row,” he said, adding the momentum had shifted to Col Gaddafi.

“I don’t think he has any intention of leaving. From all evidence that we have ... he appears to be hunkering down for the duration.”

His remarks came as the Dow Jones index fell 228 points on concerns over the effects of the Libyan conflict on oil supplies, slipping back under the psychological barrier that it passed in late January.

Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, will travel to Egypt and Tunisia next week to press democratic reforms after the recent rebellions and meet members of Libya’s opposition.

Libyan Rebels Gain Diplomatic Advance, but Retreat on Battlefield

Photo: VOA - P. Ittner - Rebel fighters at positions outside Brega, Libya, show their support for the opposition and their

 

Libya’s opposition had success on the international stage Thursday, but setbacks in fighting against forces loyal to the country's leader, Moammar Gadhafi.

The opposition lost territory in both the east and west of the country, though the rebels here in Benghazi were buoyed by the recognition by France of the opposition administration.
Hundreds of supporters took to the streets in the opposition’s stronghold. They carried signs praising and thanking France for recognizing their new interim governing council as the representative of the Libyan people.

For 19-year-old Zarah this puts France in good standing in her heart and her favor. "They are good to us from the start, they stand with us since the beginning… So they good… We like France… We like them more… We like the government France."
For the rebel leadership, it means more than good tidings that France has recognized them. As opposition spokesman Mustaffa Geliani put it, it means some tangible steps forward for what he hopes will be the new government of Libya…
"At least as a legal government of this country we can request to purchase weapons if we have to," said Geliani… "We could address United Nations, formally, as a country, trying to protect ourself, which we couldn’t do that before… Once you have recognition and you are member of world community you can ask for things. Before we were doing it, in a sense, illegally, right? It’s a revolution. But today we have a voice. So we are quite optimistic… Time is on our side."
Time may not be on the side, however, for the fighters on the front lines. Counter-offensives by government troops are using overwhelming force and regaining territory with a bloody cost.
Even the rebel leadership now acknowledges the western town of Zawiya, near Tripoli, is back in the hands of forces loyal to Gadhafi after holding out for days.
In the east, the oil refinery town of Ras Lanuf is under intense pressure from airstrikes, artillery and naval bombardment. Rebel fighters were seen leaving. Reports from the town and refinery are that they were on the verge of falling into the hands of pro-Gadhafi forces.

If that happens, there are only a handful of small towns to slow down a government push across the desert. Just a bit more than 200 kilometers lie between Ras Lanuf and the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

Voanews.com