Libyagate: Tribes united against Misurata insurgents. NATO banditry.
Pro-Gaddafi tribes tell rebels to return to fold
Libyan tribes loyal to Muammar Gaddafi called on rebels on Saturday to 'return to the fold' and stand united with their leader against NATO airstrikes they likened to Italy's colonial rule.
The call came in a meeting of leaders representing some 420 tribes to which Gaddafi's government brought the foreign media it has permitted in Tripoli. Those journalists operate under close supervision from government minders. "The Zawarah tribes call on our brothers in the east and in the Western Mountains to … return to the fold of other Libyan tribes," said Mohammed al-Mansouri, speaking on behalf of tribes from the Zawarah area in the west of Libya.
"Libya's soil is the graveyard of invaders. Ask the fascist Italians what happened to them when they invaded Libya in 1911."
Nasreddine Abu Amaid said the tribes would try to negotiate an end to the fighting, provided NATO airstrikes stopped, but were ready to fight the rebels if necessary. "We will go. Our guys are ready. In my town we have 15,000 who are ready to cleanse Misrata," he said, referring to Aziziya, southwest of Tripoli, where the meeting took place.
"We wanted the army to retreat. We will take over. We are really fed up, especially from NATO. If NATO did not enter it would not have happened like this." Asked if he was worried that such a move would spark a full-blown civil war, Abu Amaid said: "We are ready for that if they don't want to stop."
Virtually all those who spoke at the conference pledged allegiance to Gaddafi, a blown-up photograph of whom was placed at the front of the hall. Tribesmen in white robes rose and burst into pro-government chants in the middle of speeches.
Mahmoud al-Bahloul spoke on behalf of 34 clans numbering around 200,000 people he said constituted a protective belt around the capital. Other speakers represented other groupings. "We say Libyans are one and Libyan soil will not be divided," Omar Tantoush, a coordinator of the meeting, told the assembled tribesmen.
15,000 from one town, that outnumbers the armed insurgents in Misurata by a considerable amount. It would be wise for the Misuratans to negotiate.
US anti war status report, Paul and Kucinich lead the charge
Congressman Dennis Kucinich's Address to Congress on the War in Libya
We are not naïve about the existence of forces in the world which work against peace and against human security, but it is our fervent wish that we shall never become like those whom we condemn as lawless and without scruples. For it is our duty as members of a democratic society to provide leadership by example, to not only articulate the highest standards but to walk down the path to peace and justice with those standards as our constant companions. Our moral leadership in the world depends chiefly upon the might and light of truth and not shock and awe, and ghastly glow of our 2,000 lb bombs.
The power to declare war is firmly and explicitly vested in the Congress of the United States under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Let us make no mistake about it, dropping 2000 lb bombs and unleashing the massive firepower of our air force on the capital of a sovereign state is in fact an act of war and no amount of legal acrobatics can make it otherwise.
It is that same arrogance of power which the former Senator from Arkansas, J. William Fulbright, saw shrouded in the deceit which carried us into the abyss of the war in Vietnam. We determined we would never again see another Vietnam. It was the awareness of the unchecked power and arrogance of the executive which led Congress to pass the War Powers Act.
The Congress through the War Powers Act provided the executive with an exception to unilaterally respond only when the nation was in actual or imminent danger; to "repel sudden attacks."
Today we are in a constitutional crisis because our chief executive has assumed for himself powers to wage war which are neither expressly defined nor implicit in the Constitution, nor permitted under the War Powers Act.
This is a challenge not just to the Administration, but to Congress itself:
The President has no right to wrest that fundamental power from Congress – and we have no right to cede it to him. /much more
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