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I couldn’t bear to watch the President’s why-we’re-in-Libya speech as it was broadcast: it’s Spring, after all, and my garden needs planting. Priorities, priorities, priorities: so important, in politics and in life. We all have our priorities: I have mine, and the President of the United States has his. As an indication of the latter, I note that Obama waited a whole week after deploying US forces before deigning to explain his actions to the American people. He has yet to go to Congress for authorization, although he made sure he cleared it with our pushy allies and the UN Security Council. Having received this double-dispensation, Congress is for him but an afterthought. This is the true meaning of “multilateralism”: world opinion matters, American opinion – not so much.

When he finally did come before us to justify this latest episode of world-saving, he didn’t address Congress, but “the most servile audience he could find,” as James Bovard so trenchantly put it, “uniformed military officers at the National Defense University. The room will be full of people who are owned lock, stock, and barrel by the government. The officers have spent their lives working for Uncle Sam, and they know that a single ill-time hoot during Obama’s talk could end their careers.” There would be no “You lie!” moment in this setting. Such safeguards were not for nothing, because practically every other word out of his mouth was either a lie or a truth so veiled in ambiguity that it merges into untruth on closer inspection.

Chris Floyd: A Hundred Years of Rain: Air War Comes Full Circle in Libya
Bill Van Auken: Obama on Libya: A war for US “interests”
Barry Grey: London conference plots imperialist carve-up of Libya
Glenn Greenwald: Obama and American exceptionalism
Stephen Lendman: Obama on Libya: Defending the Indefensible
Benjamin H. Friedman: Three Phony Reasons to Bomb Libya
William Blum: Libya and The Holy Triumvirate
Nebojsa Malic: Another Evil Little War
Stephen Lendman: Planned Regime Change in Libya
Stephen Lendman: US-Led Libyan Ground Assault Planned
Stephen Lendman: Cheerleading for War
Richard Falk: Qaddafi, Moral Interventionism, Libya, and the Arab Revolutionary Moment
Stephen Lendman: Western Aggression on Libya

• Pro-Gaddafi forces retake Brega and advance on Ajdabiya
• Britain backs US on legality of arming Libyan rebels
• Defiant Gaddafi denounces rebels as al-Qaida terrorists
• Top US officials to brief Congress on Libya strategy
• Assad gives first speech since protests began

CBS News: Top Libyan minister defects to the U.K.

[A woman shouts slogans in support of Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi as she carries his photo, at the Pan African Freedom Square, in Uganda capital Kampala Tuesday March 29, 2011. Police in Uganda say they stopped supporters of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi from marching toward and possibly attacking U.S. and other embassies in Kampala. A group of several hundred Africans from countries like Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania held an anti-U.S. rally where they held signs like "Down with America" and "Down with Obama." (AP Photo/Stephen Wandera)]

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is welcome to live in the East African nation of Uganda, the president's spokesman told The Associated Press on Wednesday, in what appears to be the first country to offer him refuge.

An intense diplomatic effort is under way to find a country where Gadhafi can go, as an international military effort against Gadhafi's forces continues.

The spokesman for Uganda's president, Tamale Mirundi, told the AP that Gadhafi would be welcome in Uganda. He said Uganda's policy is to accept asylum seekers, especially because so many Ugandans fled the country during the longtime rule of dictator Idi Amin. "So we have soft spots for asylum seekers. Gadhafi would be allowed to live here if he chooses to do so," Mirundi said.

Another possible reason Uganda might accept Gadhafi is that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is, like Gadhafi, among the old guard of African leaders. Museveni has been in power for 25 years, though he won re-election in February amid signs that many Ugandans still genuinely support him. Gadhafi has been in power for more than 40 years.

Israel is studying plans to create an artificial island along the Gaza Strip with sea and air ports to be controlled by the Palestinian Authority, an Israeli television channel reported Tuesday. The project, under development for three months by Transport Minister Yaakov Katz proposes building a man-made island four kilometres (2.5 miles) long and two kilometres (1.2 miles) wide, Israel's Channel 2 television reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backs the plan for the island, which would also contain a tourist area, a marina, hotels and a desalination plant for sea water, the report said. It would be linked to Gaza by a four-kilometre bridge. It is estimated the project will cost $5-$10 billion (3.5-7 billion euros) and take six to 10 years to complete, the channel reported.

The project's backers in the government would like to see the island managed by Mahmud Abbas' Palestinian Authority -- freezing out Islamist movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip.

Google leveled new charges against China this week, claiming that the country has interfered with some citizens' access to the Internet giant's Gmail service, disguising the interference as technical glitches. Security experts say that China is most likely using invisible intermediary servers, or "transparent proxies," to intercept and relay network messages while rapidly modifying the contents of those communications. This makes it possible to block e-mail messages while making it appear as if Gmail is malfunctioning.

Yahoo: Facebook drops uprising page after Israel protest
BBC: Facebook has removed a page calling for a new Palestinian uprising against Israel after more than 350,000 people signed up to it

An American-Venezuelan lawyer says she possesses a document that would prove Washington has plans to engage in subversive activities in Venezuela and Libya to gain control of their huge oil and gas resources. In an exclusive interview with Press TV, Eva Golinger said that the document includes a map that offers specific directions and targets. According to Golinger, the US government has been pursuing the so-called 'irregular warfare' strategies of subversion, penetration and infiltration in places that hold strategic energy resources.

“When I was doing that research and I found that the document was the same time when the US government had entered into an agreement with Colombia to increase their military presence,” Golinger said. “I also found another document called white paper all from the US air force and air force command operation team and it specifically referred to how the US needed to establish this kind of full spectrum control military control to conduct the operations in certain regions, particularly talking about South America,” she added.

Golinger warned that Washington has set an agenda to highjack the ongoing revolutions in the Arab world and North Africa in order to institute friendly regimes and secure its long-term interests.

A new poll published on Wednesday found nearly half of Americans were opposed to US military involvement in Libya, reflecting tricky political ground being navigated by President Barack Obama. But the Quinnipiac University survey also found that most voters were confident the US mission to shield civilians from Moamer Kadhafi could succeed, though there was an undercurrent of concern about a long engagement. Qunnipiac also uncovered warning signs for Obama over his wider political prospects, with its survey recording its lowest-ever approval rating for the president -- 42 percent -- down from 46 percent earlier this month.

Respondents also said by a margin of 50 to 41 percent that Obama did not deserve to be re-elected in 2012.

The conference on Libya held Tuesday at London's Lancaster House was a repulsive exercise in hypocrisy and cynicism. In the name of liberating the Libyan people, the United States and Britain brought together foreign ministers from 40 countries and dignitaries from international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO and the Arab League to sanction an escalation of the air war against the former colony and set the stage for the installation of a stooge regime. As American, British and French missiles and bombs continued to rain down on Libyan government troops and civilian populations in cities such as Tripoli and Sirte, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Prime Minister David Cameron declared that the military assault would continue indefinitely.

Stephen Lendman, Obama on Libya: Defending the Indefensible