The Libyan rebels are learning that 'no-fly zone' can translate in practice into lethal onslaughts in which Nato planes have killed or wounded at least a score of their number. Civilians in Tripoli have also died in large numbers from aerial onslaughts by Nato planes.

There's no evidence that the missions flown by Nato planes have been anything other than a plus for Gaddafi. As always, bombardment swiftly engenders loathing for the bombardiers. Relatives of the slain in Tripoli shake their fists at the sky; the rebels proclaim that they have been "betrayed" by their supposed protectors.

The tiny number of planes now deployed by France and Italy, after the Americans withdrew their attack aircraft and handed off the mission, displays the half-hearted nature of the intervention.

As the leader of the A-10 design team, Pierre Sprey, points out to me, "Thirty-three French and 17 British planes is a laughably miniscule force - the inevitable consequence of designing and buying $100 million hyper-complex fighters. In October of 1935, the Italians deployed 595 airplanes to launch their gallant invasion of Ethiopia."

The deputy commander of Nato's operation in Libya caused further outrage among the rebels by bluffly refusing to say he was sorry for the screw-ups.

Killed by 'friendly fire': war's dirty little secret

and to underscore this tragic high farce ....

Evidencs is now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a "bloodbath'' in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.

But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.

Misurata's population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people - including combatants - have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 - less than 3 percent - are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.

Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention. "If we waited one more day, Benghazi . . . could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.'' Thus, the president concluded, "preventing genocide'' justified US military action.

But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya's civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.

The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially - including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi.

Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of cities. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency. And strict laws of war may have been exceeded.

But Khadafy's acts were a far cry from Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Bosnia, and other killing fields. Libya's air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire - each one a tragedy - but that is urban warfare, not genocide.

False pretense for war in Libya?

Britain, France & the US have now come clean.

The article signed by Cameron, Sarkozy & Obama, & published today in Washington, Paris & London, makes clear the war on Libya is not about  

protecting civilians, but about regime change.

Having ignored peace moves from the African Union, NATO is now set on escalating the bombing.

The humanitarian spin being put on the operation is exposed by the fact that the Western governments continue to support brutal regimes in Yemen, Bahrain & Saudi Arabia, where severe repression against democracy activists continues virtually uncriticised.

Meanwhile, as predicted, the bombing is claiming many civilian casualties & helping to deepen the division in the country.

The empire and its minions could not get rid of Ghaddafi by staging a revolt under the utterly absurd cloak of "peaceful protests" ("We are losing the information war" - Hillary Clinton. Ms. Clinton lies do not work when people are searching for truth) so they had to resort to bombs, violence, brute force.

Now comes to light another utter embarrasment for them and the UN, this one they can NEVER LIVE DOWN.

It just so happens that the United Nations Human Rights Council was scheduled to take another important vote. What was that vote?

The Council was about to vote on a report that affirmed and praised Libya and Colonel Ghaddafi for THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD. The report said that the Ghaddafi government protected "not only political rights, but also economic, educational, social and cultural rights," and praised it for the nation's treatment of religious minorities, and the "human rights training" received by security forces.

It was to be approved at a vote later this month. Did something suddenly happen over night? If you believe it did, I have a bridge to sell you.

No less than 46 delegations to the controversial Human Rights Council made positive comments, with rare criticism from, who else, the United States.

They have moved to postpone the vote. Anyone wonder why? Let everyone, particularly those in positions of power, take notice. We know why. How embarrassing for the dogs of war that vote would be if it were held honestly, no pressure, no blackmail, no bribes. How embarrassing...first the best standard of living in Africa and now a commendation for human rights practices. What a terrible dictator Colonel Ghaddafi is!

UN Human Rights Report: Another Shocking UN Cover Up About Libya

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has begun seeking a country, most likely in Africa, that might be willing to provide shelter to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi if he were forced out of Libya, even as a new wave of intelligence reports suggest that no rebel leader has emerged as a credible successor to the Libyan dictator.

The intense search for a country to accept Colonel Qaddafi has been conducted quietly by the United States and its allies, even though the Libyan leader has shown defiance in recent days, declaring that he has no intention of yielding to demands that he leave his country, and intensifying his bombardment of the rebel city of Misurata.

The effort is complicated by the likelihood that he would be indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988, and atrocities inside Libya.

One possibility, according to three administration officials, is to find a country that is not a signatory to the treaty that requires countries to turn over anyone under indictment for trial by the court, perhaps giving Colonel Qaddafi an incentive to abandon his stronghold in Tripoli.

The move by the United States to find a haven for Colonel Qaddafi may help explain how the White House is trying to enforce President Obama’s declaration that the Libyan leader must leave the country but without violating Mr. Obama’s refusal to put troops on the ground.

The United Nations Security Council has authorized military strikes to protect the Libyan population, but not to oust the leadership. But Mr. Obama and the leaders of Britain and France, among others, have declared that to be their goals, apart from the military campaign.

“We learned some lessons from Iraq, and one of the biggest is that Libyans have to be responsible for regime change, not us,” one senior administration official said on Saturday. “What we’re simply trying to do is find some peaceful way to organize an exit, if the opportunity arises.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/world/africa/17rebels.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

As the military fortunes of the Libyan rebels wax and wane daily, there are increased calls for NATO and its allies to do more to help overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. This follows strong indications that CIA operatives and British special forces - several of whom were captured and briefly detained a few weeks ago - are already on the ground and aiding the rebels. But there has been a notable lack of commentary on the legality of these activities. Put bluntly, they are almost certainly illegal in international law.

In situations that threaten international peace and security, the Security Council has power under the UN Charter to authorise action by member states that would otherwise be subject to two key international law prohibitions: on intervention in the internal affairs of another state, and on the use of force.

International law has longstanding and tolerably clear rules on foreign intervention in internal conflicts. A state may, if invited, assist the government of another state to suppress a minor rebellion or domestic unrest. But if the internal conflict develops into a civil war - where, for example, the rebellion is on a large scale or the outcome uncertain - then any foreign intervention, invited or not, is forbidden. International law views civil war as an internal matter: it is for the people of each state to determine their own political fate, and other states cannot interfere in that process. The only exception to this prohibition is that a government facing civil war can still invite outside assistance where the rebels have themselves received foreign help.

So far as intervention to assist the opposition is concerned, this is, and always has been, illegal in international law. The theoretical basis for this has been debated over the years but the generally recognised rationales for the prohibition are the principle of non-intervention and respect for state sovereignty. As the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has made clear on more than one occasion, the principle of non-intervention prohibits a state "to intervene, directly or indirectly, with or without armed force, in support of an internal opposition in another State".

The merits or otherwise of the rebels' cause is immaterial: whether they are fighting to depose a brutal tyrant or a model democratic régime, no state may legally assist them. The United States would be particularly aware of this from their experience with funding and arming the contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s. In a case brought against the United States by Nicaragua complaining of these activities, the ICJ considered whether the US's assistance to the contras, in their attempts to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government, could be justified on ideological grounds. The Court firmly rejected this, declaring that there was no exception in international law allowing intervention in support of an opposition whose political or moral values seemed particularly worthy.

Arming The Libyan Rebels: Tempting But Illegal

The one dominant imperialist power and the two former colonial rulers of the world jointly stated their intentions in a open letter published on April 15 in the Washington Post and other media. U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote that their goal was to remove Moammar Gadhafi, the leader of Libya - for good. That's what they call "regime change." This is even in violation of the resolution rammed through the UN Security Council. It is international lawlessness on a grand scale.

Britain, France, and the U.S. possess the most destructive military machines on earth. Despite their internecine rivalries for plunder, despite the rejection of their plans by most African countries, despite the misgivings of their key NATO ally, Germany, they are at war. In arrogant defiance of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, who met recently and condemned the intervention, they have decided to move forward with the conquest of Libya. Italy, once the colonial master of Libya, has joined the criminal bombing.

Whatever reluctance U.S. imperialism may have had about the Libyan adventure, it is now on board with its junior partners in conquest. The next step, announced on April 19, is that Britain and France will be sending military officers into the Libyan city of Misrata to "advise" the collection of armed people that the corporate media calls "rebels."

If the three imperialist powers have taken the first step toward the occupation of an African country, if Washington is ready to send "boots on the ground" for a third occupation, it is because they know that the so-called rebels are completely incapable of holding together - let alone winning a battle and forming a government - without step-by-step support from the imperialists. This means that however this "rebel" grouping may or may not have begun, it has lost any resemblance to a real national liberation movement or even a movement for bourgeois democracy - it is now a complete tool of the imperialists.

The leadership of this grouping has asked for the U.S. to use its AC-130 and A-10 Warthog planes to give close ground cover to its troops. These are planes only the Pentagon can provide. They fire a withering blast of thousands of shells a minute and have often employed depleted-uranium-reinforced shells, with long-term damaging effects on civilians.

The so-called "rebels" have also cheered  the introduction of pilotless drones by the the imperialists. These futuristic weapons which are operated by remote control from halfway around the world are already being used by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Yemen, and other places, where the imperialists  fear exposing their troops. Most of the drone attacks have been political assassinations which have killed many civilians.

As if the use of these weapons of slaughter  weren't enough to refute the "humanitarian" pretext given for this imperialist intervention, Sarkozy made it clear in another way when he stopped a train carrying refugees from Tunisia at the Italian-French border and sent the suffering people back. This is the Sarkozy the world knows, without his "humanitarian" mask. He advocated using steam water cannons on residents of North African heritage living in the French working-class suburbs in 2005.

These countries, through NATO, carried out the re-Balkanization of Yugoslavia. The U.S. is occupying Afghanistan. The U.S. and Britain have brought the Iraqi nation to ruin and sorrow. Now these three powers, through NATO, are attempting to reconquer Libya. They conspiring to weaken or overthrow the Syrian government and replace it with a compliant regime. It is beyond time to cut through the lies told in Washington, London, Paris and all the imperialist capitals and expose the role of these 19th-century colonial rulers grasping for a comeback.

These wars and occupations have nothing to do with alleged misdeeds of the national leaders, be they Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, the Taliban or Gadhafi. They are nothing but the imperialists' attempt to reconquer and recolonize strategic regions. They are doing it with the resources stolen from workers and poor at home. It's time we put a stop to them.