Negotiations

View 698 Monday, October 24, 2011

Los Angeles braces for an imperial visit. The bards are preparing the panegyric. The police are turning out to barricade many citizens in their homes, lest they inconvenience the President or his 30 vehicle cavalcade of minions. The President will meet more or less exclusively with the 1% — actually, given that it’s about $20,000 to attend his fund-raiser in Hancock Park, it’s more like the .01% — before disrupting traffic at rush hours to go to Burbank where he will appear on a TV show directed at the 99%. He will probably make some kind of symbolic gesture of support to the OWS 99% denouncing the 1%, but not until his treasurer has made certain that the checks clear the bank.

The Presidential Schedule is not published, but so far as I know there are no scheduled events for the local press. This is a fund raising trip to appeal to Hollywood

I was involved in fund raisers for Goldwater and later for Ronald Reagan, and I was not fond of some of Nixon’s fund-raising events in California, but I don’t recall that any of them were as disruptive as this. President Obama’s cavalcade in Los Angeles may be a bit smaller than his Virginia-Carolina motorcade, so it probably won’t be as big as Colonel Qaddafi’s last parade, but it will be big enough.

I doubt the panegyric will be impressive. Few of those for Roman emperors were even when prepared by the best poets of an age that educated its poets.

The Israelis have traded 1,000 well treated prisoners for one mistreated sergeant.

I once told then Israeli President Weizman that I didn’t know how to govern his country. Of course that was preparatory to my suggestions on what I thought they were doing wrong. I still don’t know how to govern Israel, nor do I have the stake in the outcome that the Israeli government does, but that doesn’t stop me from suggesting a different course of action.

Were it up to me to negotiate for the return of a soldier kidnapped by Hamas, I would simply ask how many Hamas officials they wanted in exchange for my sergeant. “I need to know the number, because I have Mossad standing by to make up the list of Hamas officials we will have the IDF take as prisoners. The sooner I have the number the quicker Mossad and our special forces can do their work. We can then have the exchange. Please tell me the number.”

It’s lunch time. I do wonder what President Obama will say to the OWS kids when he is done with his Hancock Park fund raiser.

I have some sympathy for those who have a lifelong debt in exchange for some years of their lives acquiring an education that is in essence worthless. They learned no history, no economics, and little else of any real value, and they have little prospect of a job until the economy revives. They saw a $Trillion spent on stimulus and bailouts with not much result other than enormous bonuses paid to people whose contribution to the world is to move money around in circles. Not much of it seems to get down to the levels where they live.

Their view of the world is somewhat distorted but their education didn’t show them how to see it all more clearly. More on this after lunch, but it is a bit disturbing.

Appearing on the Alex Jones Show today, investigative journalist Wayne Madsen said his sources in Libya provided information revealing Moammar Gaddafi was set-up in an assassination plot.

Early on October 19, Twitter messages from Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte reported the presence of white flags across the devastated town. Flags were reported at multiple locations in the town, leaving some to believe the rebels were surrendering, The use of white flags to signal surrender is an ancient tradition going back to the Eastern Han dynasty in China and the Roman Empire. Violating the widely accept convention is considered an act of extreme treachery.

Under both the Geneva and Hague protocols of international humanitarian law, it is forbidden to kill or injure persons hors de combat (outside of combat) and doing so constitutes a major war crime.

Madsen’s sources said Gaddafi was told to surrender to the al-Qaeda rebels besieging Sirte before morning prayers at 5 am, but that it was decided to surrender after the sun was well up in the sky so the white flags would be clearly visible.

It also appears likely the arrival of Secretary of State Clinton in Libya may have played into the plot and convinced Gaddafi to surrender.

According to official accounts, however, Gaddafi was attempting to flee Sirte and avoid surrender.

http://www.infowars.com/madsen-gaddafi-flying-white-flag-when-killed/

I have no direct knowledge of this matter, but it does seem a bit odd that the NATO air power including a US killer drone were waiting for the cavalcade out of Sirte. It’s unlikely that they stumbled on it, or that they were maintaining air patrols there. This appears to be a reasonably well planned kill operation. As to whether it conforms to the directive of protecting the civil population of Libya I have no idea.  One wonders how the Presidents of Syria and Yemen understand the messages here.

Khaddafi’s body has been subjected to practices not permitted under the Quran, so it is clear that Sharia law does not yet govern Libya.

The execution of  Qadafi was no more than he deserved, and the desecration of his body echoes that of the founder of united Libya, Benito Mussolini.

The question now is what happens now, and who is looking out for the US interests there. Iraq will probably break up into its component provinces; almost certainly the Kurds will refuse to accept the sovereignty of Baghdad and the Shia. It is not likely that Baghdad has the means for the conquest of the Kurdish province, which may well proclaim its independence and apply for membership in the United Nations. Libya was united under the Italian rule under Mussolini. Just how strong the union between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania has been forged is not clear. There are plenty of reasons for conflict. The stakes are high, and the US has considerable interest in the matter, but it is not clear that the US has any strong influence over the outcome.