Ann Talbot
WSWS

The USS Kearsarge

Sharp divisions within ruling circles have not halted the military preparations for an attack on Libya. This is despite very public disputes over the advisability of military intervention within the Obama administration, in European governments and between European Union member states, on the UN Security Council and among the Arab regimes.

US President Barack Obama disregarded warnings from leading US officials—including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who criticized “loose talk” of US intervention in Libya—and indicated his support for Gaddafi’s ouster. He said, “Colonel Gaddafi needs to step down from power. You’ve seen with great clarity that he has lost legitimacy with his people ... We will continue to send the clear message that it’s time for Gaddafi to go.”

Obama refused to rule out imposing a no-fly zone in Libya—that is, unilaterally declaring that US or NATO forces will shoot down Libyan aircraft flying in Libyan airspace. Imposing a no-fly zone in Libya would entail bombing the country to destroy its air defenses. Obama explained, “I don’t want us hamstrung.”

Three Dutch marines have been detained by Libyan government forces, after they landed in a Lynx helicopter near Sirte. They claim to have been on a mission to rescue Dutch civilians, but this appears to be a flimsy cover for a reconnaissance operation. A Dutch naval vessel, HMS Tromp, has joined what is now an international flotilla of warships off the Libyan coast.

Two US amphibious landing craft, the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce, passed through the Suez Canal on Wednesday heading for Libya. They join the USS Barry, which is already in position. The Kearsarge can carry 2,000 marines.

Citing unnamed intelligence sources, the British Daily Mirror has reported that Egyptian special forces have been allowed to cross the Tunisian border into Libya to reinforce the anti-Gaddafi opposition. The close connections between the Egyptian army and the Pentagon mean that any such operation would have been coordinated with Washington. The same article claims that there are plans involving British special forces, which are currently in Malta, to assassinate Gaddafi. The Mirror’s source suggests that this would be done using a military drone.

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Stephen Lendman

Construction workers on the job in New York
City. (Photo: Shannon Stapleton / Reuters)

Outside the beltway, ground zero is Wisconsin, but worker rights are threatened across America, including by the Obama administration's spurning them since taking office in January 2009. While giving at least $12.4 trillion to Wall Street crooks and hundreds of billions more to other corporate favorites, he stiff-armed budget-strapped states and local governments, especially in the current fiscal year, leaving them on their own sink or swim.

He also did little for distressed households. Promising millions of new jobs, he created few, leaving real unemployment over 22% more than three years after economic crisis began.

Moreover, he provided little popular aid overall, and facilitated Wall Street's home foreclosure racket, involving fabricated documents, forgery, perjury, lost paperwork, and "rocket docket" eviction speed throughs lasting 20 seconds on average. He also froze federal worker wages and plans sweeping austerity for working households, while showering business and America's aristocracy with generous tax breaks and other handouts.

The way reactionary governors and mayors hammer their residents, Obama is doing to America. He's no friend of labor. In mid-February, he cynically told Milwaukee's WTMJ television that:

"Everybody's got to make some adjustments to new fiscal realities," claiming worker sacrifices are necessary to "save jobs" when, in fact, they're killing them and driving millions into poverty from wage and benefit cuts. At the same time, corporate profits are better than ever, achieved on the backs of hammered workers, swindled by a Washington-business cabal, sacrificing people for marketplace sovereignty - a government-sponsored racket.

Overall, Obama pretends to support workers. In fact, he spurns them, his vague, tepid rhetoric a dead giveaway for supporting class warfare, including harsh measures to quell dissent.

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Joseph Kishore
WSWS

“It is not the first time they have killed our poor and innocent people. We don’t accept their apologies. They have apologized in the past but continue killing our people again and again.”

On Tuesday, March 1, the US military massacred nine children in an airstrike in Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunar province. The attack, which prompted mass protests, is only the latest atrocity in the region, coming less than two weeks after another attack left as many as 65 civilians dead.

The nine children killed Tuesday were collecting firewood in the Pech Valley area of Afghanistan. They were targeted by helicopter gunships sent from a nearby base run by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). A video report from Al Jazeera shows the burial of the nine children, all under fourteen. NATO forces claimed that they were responding to rocket attacks.

This latest incident is part of a regular campaign of terror directed at the Afghan people. Countless numbers of civilians have been killed. Often there is no direct evidence of these war crimes, with most casualties simply labeled by the US military and an obedient media as “insurgents” or “Taliban.”

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