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(GLOBALRESEARCH, CORBET REPORT) The Assassination of Gaddafi

The Assassination of Gaddafi
by grtv

The killing of Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of NATO-backed, Al Qaeda-linked forces marks the end of a campaign expressly aimed at the assassination of a head of state and overthrow of a sovereign country in direct violation of international standards that have held sway since the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II and the establishment of the Geneva Conventions.

The NATO campaign, known as “Operation Unified Protector,” was a continuation of the US-led Operation Odyssey Dawn. It formally began on March 23rd, 2011 and was ostensibly an operation to enforce United Nations Security Council resolution 1973. From the outset, the NATO coalition partners insisted that the aim of the mission was not to assist a rebel insurgency in overthrowing the Gaddafi government, but to “protect civilians” in accordance with UN resolutions.

The real intention of the operation was revealed shortly thereafter, however, in a joint op-ed in the pages of the International Herald Tribune penned by Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy:

“Our duty and our mandate under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Qaddafi by force,” they wrote in their editorial. “But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi in power.[...]It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government.”

Within a month, the true aim of the intervention to assassinate Gaddafi was confirmed when NATO forces bombed the personal residence of Saif Al-Arab Gaddafi, Muammar’s youngest son in an admitted attempt to kill the Libyan leader himself. While Gaddafi himself was not caught in the strike, his son and three of his grandchildren were killed in the bombing.

Now it is confirmed that the strike that resulted in the death of Gaddafi was initiated, organized, coordinated and led by NATO and SAS forces. The attack began when Gaddafi was fleeing Sirte in a convoy of 75 vehicles. Drone pilots at Creech Air Force base in Nevada launched a round of Hellfire missiles from a Predator drone aircraft, destroying the lead vehicle and prompting a French bomber to release two laser-guided 500 pound bombs into the centre of the convoy. British SAS troops, meanwhile, coordinated the ground forces that eventually captured Gaddafi.

The news of Gaddafi’s death was greeted with elation by NATO leaders around the world and echoed by pundits and talking heads of every political persuasion. The ostensible justification for the entire campaign, however, the charge that Gaddafi was engaged in a “massacre” of his own people, has since been shown to be based on falsehoods, misrepresentations, and undocumented allegations.

Find out more about the death of Gaddafi and the gears of the international "justice" system that was out to convict him from the start in this week's GRTV Backgrounder.

FULL TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=2994

Labels: ASSASSINATION, LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, NATO, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 4:37 PM