In Libya military commanders denounce Qaddaffi and join the anti-government protesters especially after Qaddaffi ordered the military to use lethal force on unarmed protesters.
Colonel Hussein was especially angered at the reports of security forces’ firing on protesters after prayers. “They did not have weapons,” he said, speaking at an abandoned army base in the eastern city of Benghazi, which is firmly under rebel control. “They shot people outside the mosque.”
Asked what would happen if Colonel Qaddafi was deposed or killed, Colonel Hussein said Libyans wanted a democracy.
It was our duty to enter the fight,” he added. “The regime started this. They are the ones who brought the revolution.” Quote from New York Times
Interim Libyan government wins support from Aljazeera Feb. 26, 2011.
Gaddafi now on fire against protesters in Libya
and :
Battle for Tripoli continues
From AljazeeraEnglish ,Feb. 26, 2011
Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid is in eastern Libya from where she wraps up the latest from across the country
Security forces in Libyan city switch sides as Gadhafi clings on
By the CNN Wire Staff February 27, 2011
Zawiya, Libya (CNN) -- Libya's embattled leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, seemed increasingly cornered Sunday as security forces defected to the opposition in a town a short drive from the capital, and the United Nations Security Council voted for tough restrictions on and possible war crimes charges against the Libyan regime.
Former security forces said they had switched sides and joined the opposition in Zawiya, a town about 55 kilometers (35 miles) from the capital, Tripoli. Some buildings in Zawiya showed signs of damage, including a freshly burnt-out police station.
CNN's Nic Robertson saw armed civilians taking defensive positions on rooftops to prepare for a possible effort by Gadhafi loyalists to retake the town.
About 150 people rallied outside the town in support of Gadhafi later on Sunday, in what appeared to be a hastily organized demonstration.
"Qaddafi Forces Shooting From Ambulances, Witnesses Say" by: David D. Kirkpatrick and Sharon Otterman, The New York Times News Service Feb. 26, 2011
Tripoli, Libya - An increasingly gruesome picture began to emerge Saturday of the violent tactics used by the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to quell protesters in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, with several witnesses confirming that forces loyal to the government had been shooting people from ambulances and using antiaircraft guns against crowds.Asked what would happen if Colonel Qaddafi was deposed or killed, Colonel Hussein said Libyans wanted a democracy.
Witnesses to the violence in Tripoli, where a tense standoff held on Saturday, also said that the government had removed dead bodies as well as the wounded from hospitals in an effort to disguise the mounting death toll in the uprising against Col. Qaddafi sweeping Libya.
Col. Qaddafi’s forces had put down demonstrators, who had taken to the streets after Friday Prayers to mount their first major challenge to the government’s crackdown, with snipers from rooftops, buckshot, and tear gas, witnesses said. There were unconfirmed reports that an armed rebel force was approaching the city on Saturday.
In Tajoura, a neighborhood of the capital where there has been significant fighting since a peaceful demonstration there last Sunday, residents had barricaded a street with old television sets and cinderblocks to try to keep out pickup trucks full of men with machine guns. A doctor working at the local clinic here said he had seen 68 people killed and 150 injured in recent days of clashes, and that residents were braced for more violence.
A rebel officer who is coordinating an attack on Tripoli, Col. Tarek Saad Hussein, asserted in an interview that an armed volunteer force of about 2,000 men — including army defectors — was to arrive in Tripoli on Friday night. There was no way to confirm his claim.
Protesters in Tripoli said that they had heard a force was on its way from the eastern cities that had fallen to rebels, but that they had been stopped in Surt, a remaining Qaddafi stronghold halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi, the opposition-controlled city where the uprising began.
Colonel Hussein was especially angered at the reports of security forces’ firing on protesters after prayers. “They did not have weapons,” he said, speaking at an abandoned army base in the eastern city of Benghazi, which is firmly under rebel control. “They shot people outside the mosque.”
Colonel Hussein said the force consisted of active duty, retired soldiers and army reservists who had joined the rebel side. It was sent to the capital in small groups, he said, adding that they carried a mixture of light arms and heavier weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades.
He did not offer more details about the size of the groups, or their route. The road to Tripoli from the country’s eastern cities is blocked to the rebels by the city of Surt, Colonel Qaddafi’s hometown.
Colonel Hussein said he was negotiating with tribal leaders and military officers in Surt to abandon the government, or at least not stand in the way of the rebels. “We’re appealing to the people of Surt to help us stop the bloodshed,” he said.
Army soldiers stationed at a barracks near Benghazi said on Friday that 200 to 250 of their colleagues had left the barracks in recent days, headed to Tripoli to fight Colonel Qaddafi’s forces.
A group of 60 or so officers stood outside another barracks in Benghazi on Friday, saying they were volunteering to go fight in Tripoli. Colonel Hussein said they were joining the battle because protesters were being killed. “In cold blood,” said Colonel Hussein.
It was our duty to enter the fight,” he added. “The regime started this. They are the ones who brought the revolution.”
Major Yemen tribal figure joins protests
Feb. 26, 2011, Aljazeera
Pro-reform pro-democracy protests continue and are spreading in the Middle East and North Africa.
Qaddaffi with little support left clings to power and has killed hundreds if not thousands in the last couple of days.
Meanwhile the latest news interim government being formed with the expectation that Tripoli will soon fall and Qaddaffi deposed.
over 100,000 protest in Madison Wisconsin while Governor Scott Walker stands his ground and unfairly blames public sector unions for deficit problems .Many argue that Gov. Walker is in fact using the deficit issue just to go after the Unions .
So first up is a another having fun with Glenn Beck episode this time on the Ed Schultz show.
Ed Schultz criticizes Glenn Beck for connecting pro-union protests in Madison to uprisings in Middle East & North Africa . Beck thinks pro-union protesters are ignorant kids or useful idiots being used by New World Order thugs or the Muslim Botherhood or AlQaeda or whomever (this week) he thinks is the behind the scenes shadow government organizing all of these uprisings and protests. And the aim of all these protests according to Beck and his ilk is to undermine America's authority .
Of course if a particular brutal authoritarian Regime is backed by the USA and that in the face of growing opposition the US continues to back such a regime then of course the pro-democracy protesters are going to also sound anti-American or any other nation that backs one of these dictators.
Beck points out that even children are being forced to take part in these protests organized by the George Soros Islamist anti-American Jihadists. He didn't bother him when young people and children took part in the Tea Party Republican anti-government anti-Obama campaign.
But will his audience not eventually catch on to the fact that Glenn Beck just makes a lot of stuff up and that for instance when Tea Party prottesters chanted "Kill the Bill" this was somehow different from when Wisconsin protesters chanted the same slogan refering to the Health Care Reform Bill.
Madison, Wisconsin Protests: Beck Insults American Workers, Unions & 'Young People'
Spain to prosecute attorneys of the former Bush Regime for their involvement with US policy on the use of torture.
During the rule of the Bush Regime tens of thousands of prisoners in jails in Iraq , Afghanistan were abused and tortured . Abu Ghraib is just one of the prisons along with Guantanamo and Bagram which became infamous for their abuse of prisoners.
But dozens more under US jurisdiction including those ostensibly under the control of Iraqis or Afghans used torture routinely.
Meanwhile President Obama is protecting the torturers and their enablers from President Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their attorneys and those in the CIA & Pentagon and other agencies which took part in the use of torture.
Most of the nations now facing popular uprisings are being run by authoritarian , oppressive regimes which routinely use torture .
While the world focuses on the pro-reform pro-democracy anti-torture states protests in the Middle East and Northern Africa anti-torture groups in USA announce that the Spanish government is going ahead with indictments against the former Bush Regime's attorneys who created a pseudo-legal veneer which allowed the Bush Regime to claim that torture was legal and did not contravene American or international law.
Bulletin from WarIsACrime.org
Spain Hears You, Bush Can Sleep Less Easily
The Spanish government's representatives appreciated the support you gave them earlier this month, thanking and encouraging Spain to prosecute U.S. war criminals. A report is here on what we did. The Spanish media spread the word.
Now comes a report from the Center for Constitutional Rights that suggests Spain may be listening:
February 25, 2011, New York – In response to news that the full panel of Judges of the Audencia Nacional (Spain’s High Court) rejected a Spanish prosecutor’s effort to stop an investigation into the role of US officials for torture on Guantanamo, the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has submitted many papers in this and a related case in Spain, released the following statement:
This is a monumental decision that will enable a Spanish judge to continue a case on the “authorized and systematic plan of torture and ill treatment†by U.S. officials at Guantanamo. Geoffrey Miller, the former commandin g officer at Guantánamo, has already been implicated, and the case will surely move up the chain of command. Since the U.S. government has not only failed to investigate the illegal actions of its own officials and, according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, also sought to interfere in the Spanish judicial process and stop the case from proceeding, this will be the first real investigation of the U.S. torture program. This is a victory for accountability and a blow against impunity. The Center for Constitutional Rights applauds the Spanish courts for not bowing to political pressure and for undertaking what may be the most important investigation in decades.
Americans Spent Valentine's Day Thanking Spain for Prosecuting Bush Lawyers Submitted by davidswanson at War Is A Crime,2011-02-15
On Valentine's Day 2011, yet another U.S. judge agreed with yet another claim that President Obama has the right to protect members of the Bush-Cheney administration from prosecution for torture.
But a coalition of human rights groups spent the day visiting the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C., and Spanish colsulates around the United States to share some love for a country that is working to prosecute former top Bush officials for torture.
The coalition thanking and encouraging Spain to enforce laws when the United States will not has gathered 8,400 signatures on a letter, a love letter of sorts, to the people of Spain, and has raised $6,000 so far for purchasing newspaper and street advertisements in Madrid.
The delegations that presented the letter on Monday to Spain's representatives in the United States reported that their visits seemed to be accepted in the spirit of friendship and gratitude in which they were made. Visits to Spanish diplomatic offices were made in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Dallas, and Phoenix.
Spanish media outlets, and Spanish-language U.S. outlets, are reporting widely on this effort, while the rest of the U.S. media, and even the blogosphere, could hardly be less interested.
At the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C., Ray McGovern and Ann Wright led a meeting with a Spanish diplomat, thanking and encouraging Spain to prosecute former Bush officials for torture on behalf of a large coalition. Ron Fisher reports that they gave the embassy personnel Valentine’s Day balloons and cookies.
In New York City, a delegation of a dozen New Yorkers gathered outside the Consulate General of Spain. They went upstairs together to the Consulate and delivered the letter, roses and a box of chocolate. They were interviewed by Univision and EFE.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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