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What! Slavery In Libya? You Weren’t Reading Black Agenda Report

If the news that black Libyans and black migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were being sold as slaves in Libya was a surprise to you, then you were not reading Black Agenda Report during the 2011-2012 NATO intervention in that country. We covered it. Almost everybody refused to question US foreign policy in Africa during the reign of our first black president. Many US news outlets, many otherwise reasonable people with access to foreign news, and countless others around the world averted their eyes and their ears to the anguish of hunted, lynched and massacred black Africans in Benghazi, in Tripoli, in Sirte and Bani Walid. But as the US Navy and US Air Force unleashed thousands of tons of bombs and missiles on innocent civilians and the military forces of the Libyan government, without which Uncle Sam’s and Barack Obama’s racist rebels could never have toppled Muammar Gadaffi, you heard and read about it each week in Black Agenda Report.

U.S. Imperialism Created Slavery In Libya

By Danya Zituni for Fight Back! News - Chicago, IL – The corporate media has only now begun reporting the atrocities committed against black Libyans and African migrant workers by racist CIA-backed proxy forces since they ravaged the country and overthrew the Libyan government in a 2011. CNN reports that African migrants are currently being sold for as little as $400 each to perform excruciating labor. The racist proxy forces engaged in the slave trade would not exist without NATO. One of the CIA-trained proxy forces was called “The Brigade for purging slaves and black skin”- which sought to ethnically cleanse the Tawurgha area, was supported by NATO strikes from the air and on the ground by U.S. Special Forces. Tawergha was mostly inhabited by black Libyans, due to its 19-century origins as a transit town in the slave trade. There was horrific video footage showing public lynchings of black soldiers from the Libyan army, migrant workers from other African countries, and any darker skinned Libyan civilians. Human Rights Watch reported: “Dark skinned Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans face particular risks because [the CIA-trained proxy forces] consider them pro-Gaddafi mercenaries.” Amnesty International also reported on the cruel detention of Libyans and other Africans by the CIA-trained proxy forces. The myth of black mercenaries fighting to protect Libya from foreign occupiers was spread by NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu, British Defense Minister Liam Fox, and other Western leaders. This myth was useful to claim that the NATO invasion and occupation of Libya was actually a war “between Gaddafi and the Libyan people”, as if he had no domestic support at all - a colossal fabrication.

Obama’s ‘Worst Mistake’ Led To Libyan Slave Trade

By Jason Johnson for The Root - When CNN broke the story several weeks ago that slavery—not wage slavery, not emotional slavery, not virtual slavery, but actual whips-and-chains-forced labor slavery—was alive and well in the North African nation of Libya, Americans finally started to take notice. Sort of. While there has been some reporting on the issue and a few statements from government leaders across the world, there has not been a sustained political and social media effort to address the Libyan slave trade akin to the 2014 Bring Back Our Girls campaign for the kidnapping victims of Boko Haram in Nigeria, or even the well-intentioned but poorly conceived Kony 2012 campaign—perhaps because the “African slavery” issue is stickier, more pervasive and, worst of all, involves the United States. The Root spoke to criminal-defense attorney and asylum expert Yodit Tewolde, who is also a legal analyst for CNN, Fox and TV One, about what is really happening in Libya right now and what responsibility African Americans really have in the current crisis. Yodit Tewolde (pronounced YO-Deet Teh-WELL-dah) was raised in Dallas, but her family is from Eritrea, and she had firsthand experience with the African slave trade long before it become a late-2017 story. “People act like this is new; this has been going on for years,” she said over the phone, holding back frustration and emotion. Thousands of refugees, primarily from countries like Eritrea and Sudan, are fleeing poverty and violence in their own countries, only to end up the victims of smugglers and slave traders at major ports in Libya.

Thank CNN For The Slave Auctions In Libya

By Danny Haiphong for Black Agenda Report - On November 14th, CNN produced an "exclusive" report about the slave trafficking of migrants in Libya. The report detailed the devastating conditions of migrants fleeing from crisis in nations across North and East Africa. Smugglers, as CNN calls them, capture and terrorize migrants before selling them into day labor. Libyan authorities then detain the migrant laborers and repatriate them back to their nation of origin. CNN emphasizes the horror of the slave auctions with the caption "I was sold" underneath a picture of one of the migrants, Victory, whose story is told in the report. CNN's coverage of the matter is typical of the corporate media. Zero context is given as to why the slave auctions exist in the first place. It is as if the horrors in Libya had just been discovered because of CNN’s investigative journalism. The underlying assumption of the report is that slave markets are a fetter of the past completely foreign to the enlightened audiences in the US and Western countries. Yet we have CNN to thank for the emergence of slave relations in Libya. It was CNN that took part in the most slanderous of lies in cooperation with the US-NATO war on Libya in 2011. Libya was bombed for over seven months while CNN provided media cover all along the way. CNN produced opinion pieces explaining why the invasion of Libya was a just war . Reports from CNN described Libya as a nation ruled over by crazed dictator Muammar Gaddafi who suddenly found the appetite to murder "his own people."

AFRICOM Is The Question

By Margaret Kimberley for Black Agenda Report. The desire to be affirmed by American society has dangerous consequences for black people. This pernicious dynamic creates the inclination to worship any black face in a high place or to defend questionable activity. The death of special forces Sergeant La David Johnson in Niger is a case in point. Donald Trump’s racism and stupidity prevented him from performing the simple task of conveying appropriate condolences to Johnson’s widow. The ensuing brouhaha focuses on what Trump said in the phone call overheard by Congressional Black Caucus member Frederica Wilson. Almost no one is asking about the fact that American troops are stationed in Africa at all.

Recolonization Of Africa By Endless War

By Dan Glazebrook for RT. Exactly six years ago, on October 20th, 2011, Muammar Gaddafi was murdered, joining a long list of African revolutionaries martyred by the West for daring to dream of continental independence. Earlier that day, Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte had been occupied by Western-backed militias, following a month-long battle during which NATO and its ‘rebel’ allies pounded the city’s hospitals and homes with artillery, cut off its water and electricity, and publicly proclaimed their desire to ‘starve [the city] into submission’. The last defenders of the city, including Gaddafi, fled Sirte that morning, but their convoy was tracked and strafed by NATO jets, killing 95 people.

Secret Reason We’ve Invaded Iraq, Libya & Soon Iran

By Staff of Popular Resistance - If Donald Trump's recent threat of military action against Iran sounds familiar to you, then It should. Democrats in Congress already beat him to it before Trump's tiny hands could even grace the bible at his swearing-in ceremony. How did they do this? By creating a resolution in January to threaten military action against Iran if they tried to obtain nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, what's being touted as a move for U.S. safety and security is starting to sound eerily similar to the threat to invade a country to find deadly weapons that turned out to never exist (think Iraq). So what's the REAL reason behind this threat of military action? All signs seem to point both underground and in America's wallets.

Newsletter: Time To Stop The Next War Now

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. There is another drumbeat growing for the United States to go to war. The media is walking in lockstep with bi-partisans in Washington, DC and with the war profiteers to this end. The likely next president, Hillary Clinton, is calling for escalation in Syria with a no fly zone that risks conflict with Russia, a nation she has been demonizing.Gulf of Tonkin How often has the United States been misled into war? How often have the people of the United States been lied to about the need for war, e.g. using a “humanitarian crisis” to justify mass slaughter and the creation of a failed state as in Libya; Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist in Iraq leading to a war that created much of the chaos that exists in the region today; and the 9/11 attack that has led to the longest war in US history when it should have led to the arrest of the prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, and his trial in the Hague.

Newsletter: #NoHoneymoon, A Presidency Of Protest

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The task of the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice is much bigger than the presidential election. Our job is to build people power to ensure that no matter who is the next president, the people’s voices are heard and our demands are part of the political agenda. We urge organizers and advocates across the nation to begin to plan a campaign beginning in early 2017 and carrying on through the inauguration to ensure that right from the beginning the people’s voices are a dominant narrative. The #NoHoneymoon campaign will take various forms in communities across the country. Talk to your networks of activists and plan what would work best in your community. The creativity and energy that comes from diverse leadership has surprised the nation before and can do so again.

UNAC Statement On Bombing Of Libya

By the United National Antiwar Committee. (August 7, 2016) The recent bombing of Libya is a continuation of the seven months long campaign of bombing carried out five years ago. At that time the U.S. and its NATO allies succeeded in destroying that country's government and assassinating President Gaddafi. Prior to that attack, Libya was the most prosperous country in Africa, with the highest standard of living and health care, education and other social benefits for its people. Today it is a failed state, a wasteland that is bleeding refugees to Europe, Tunisia and other countries seeking to escape the horror that the U.S. and NATO have created. The most recent bombing, ostensibly to combat ISIS, will not bring security to the people of Libya, but will continue the destruction of that country and cause more civilian casualties and refugees.

House Benghazi Report On Libya Hides Most Critical Information

By Eric Draitser for Information Clearing House - "Information Clearing House" - "NEO"- The Republican dominated House Select Committee on Benghazi has released its long awaited final report on the 2012 Benghazi attack which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. And, surprise, the report reveals absolutely nothing of substance that wasn’t already known. Naturally, Democrats running interference for Hillary Clinton have continually charged that the probe was simply an act of partisan politics designed more to hurt Clinton in the presidential campaign than to uncover the truth about what happened. No doubt there is truth to such an allegation.

Exposing Libyan Agenda: A Closer Look At Hillary’s Emails

By Ellen Brown for Common Dreams - The brief visit of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Libya in October 2011 was referred to by the media as a “victory lap.” “We came, we saw, he died!” she crowed in a CBS video interview on hearing of the capture and brutal murder of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi. But the victory lap, write Scott Shane and Jo Becker in the New York Times, was premature. Libya was relegated to the back burner by the State Department, “as the country dissolved into chaos, leading to a civil war that would destabilize the region...

Libyan People Lash Out At Obama For Destroying Their Country

By Staff of RT - In a message to the Libyan people, the US President said the 2011 Libyan revolution liberated them from “42 years of dictatorship.” Now there are “profound challenges,” which the Libyan people “have demonstrated the commitment to resolve.” Barack Obama welcomed the endorsement of the Libyan Political Agreement signed on December 17 and expressed confidence that with political dialogue and the establishment of a Government of National Accord, peace, prosperity, and security would come in the divided country.

Clinton Emails On Libya Show Deadly Echoes Of French Colonialism

By Conn M. Hallinan for Dispatches From The Edge - While the Benghazi emails do raise questions about Hilary Clinton’s veracity, the real story is how French intelligence plotted to overthrow the Libyan leader in order to claim a hefty slice of Libya’s oil production and “favorable consideration” for French businesses. According to the memos, in return for money and support, “the DGSE officers indicated that they expected the new government of Libya to favor French firms and national interests, particularly regarding the oil industry in Libya.” Another May 5 email indicates that French humanitarian flights to Benghazi included officials of the French oil company TOTAL, and representatives of construction firms and defense contractors, who secretly met with Council members and then “discreetly” traveled by road to Egypt, protected by DGSE agents.

Law Students Protest Harold Koh As Human Rights Lecturer

We need more principled people in government. We need people who will not advocate, as Mr. Koh has, the position that “[J]ustice for enemies ‘can be delivered through trials. Drones can also deliver.’” We need people in government who won’t make paternalistic and Orientalist generalizations about Middle Easterners by calling the U.S. diplomatic withdrawal from the Middle East in 2001 “akin to removing adult supervision from a playground populated by warring switchblade gangs.” Koh, On American Exceptionalism, 55 Stan. L. Rev. 1479, 1490-91 (2003). We need people in government who are principled enough to resign when the government it serves pursues an immoral and illegal path that jeopardizes innocent lives, rather than defend this pursuit. We need human rights lawyers in government who will refuse to sit behind a desk and make decisions based on questionable U.S. intelligence about who lives and who dies, and then compare such decisions to the law school admission process. It has not escaped our attention that Mr. Koh is regarded as one of the most respected and powerful international lawyers of our time. This does not deter us from our commitment to holding accountable members of our community who, like Mr. Koh, seem to have traded fealty to international law for a “ringside seat” at the table, at the cost of thousands of lives. The costs of remaining silent are simply too high.

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