Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Libya all in? Failed Nato mission exposes US generals [best post of the year]

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Libya all in? Failed Nato mission exposes US generals [best post of the year]

Click here to access article by Horace G. Campbell from Pambazuka News (based in South Africa).

Horace Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. He is also a Special invited Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is the author of the forthcoming book, ‘Global NATO and the catastrophic failure in Libya’.

With my deadline fast approaching I find it difficult to do this outstanding article justice with some kind of commentary. Let me say this: it is the best report of a current mainstream developing story that has wide-ranging and profound implications about the real and dangerous powers that operate largely behind the scenes at the center of the US Empire.

The full back story relating to Petraeus and Libya is still unfolding, but for this week we want to focus on how structures, such as the US Africa command, sought to function in a world as if the Command was a parallel government with its own access to AID resources, financing, health providers, private military contractors, and access to aircraft carrier strike groups such as the John Stennis. This was a military and intelligence integration, independent of the executive that was out of control and establishing policy.

It is rather lengthy, but I urge you to read it. Might be a good idea to print it out so that it can be studied more conveniently.