Anti-slavery march calls on Libya to end "crime against African humanity"
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Anti-slavery march calls on Libya to end "crime against African humanity"
Demonstrators protested outside the Libyan embassy in London on Saturday, calling for the British government to pressure Libya to end the slavery and inhumane treatment of migrants.
END THE DAMN SLAVERY‼️ HUMAN LIVES MATTER REGARDLESS OF COLOUR❗️#endslavery#humanlivesmatter#africanlivesmatter#libya#libyanembassy#london#protest#march#peace
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👊🏽👊🏽👊🏽 Let’s March! Repost @iamnaomicampbell
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It follows the emergence of video footage last month that appeared to show men being sold at a slave market in Tripoli.
Protesters gathered in London to march on the Libyan embassy because at the moment, there are up to one million migrants in Libya, many of whom are hoping to travel to Europe.
But estimates are that tens of thousands are being held in camps, detained by people smugglers and armed militia in conditions that have been described as horrific.
Among other abuses, the migrants are vulnerable to being sold off as laborers in slave auctions.
Video that emerged last month showing men being sold as slaves sent shockwaves around the world. But humanitarian and migrants groups say this is something that’s been going on for years.
“Actually what is happening in Libya is not new. It started even before Gaddafi was toppled so now it’s at the forefront of the news channels which is good so we can deal with modern slavery once and for all. The international community needs to get to the root cause of the migration of Africans in sub-Saharan Africa to places like Libya. They need to get to the root cause which is economic. They need to start actually investing properly and ethically in African economies,” said Koffi De Lome, an organizer of the protest.
On Thursday, the United Nations Security Council expressed grave concern about the reports of migrants being sold into slavery in Libya saying such actions amount to “heinous abuses of human rights.”
Libyan authorities have promised an investigation into the practice and have reached an agreement with European and African leaders for the emergency repatriation of refugees and migrants who are stranded and detained in Libya.
A 28-year-old amputee was in the hospital and another, aged 21, was in police custody Thursday after a stabbing in the Canadian capital involving the two former Libyan revolutionary fighters. Police said they responded to an emergency call at 1:20 a.m. Wednesday outside a hotel in Ottawa "regarding an altercation between two males." Abdol Fattah Elbishty, a spokesman for the Libyan embassy in Ottawa who had met with both men, told AFP the two were friends. "They lost friends in the fighting (in Libya), one lost a leg, the other lost both of his legs.
Source: AFP
The United States evacuated its Libyan embassy staff under air cover Saturday as they faced a "real risk" from fierce fighting around Tripoli airport, Secretary of State John Kerry said. The announcement came hours after the country's interim government warned the clashes between militia vying for control of the strategic airport were threatening to tear Libya apart. Fighting around the airport halted abruptly and the convoy sped out of the capital shortly afterwards, witnesses said. Calling for an end to the conflict around the airport, the government raised the spectre of "the collapse of the country" and "the destruction which could result from... endless war".
Source: AFP
The United States is deploying an amphibious assault ship with about 1000 marines off the coast of Libya in case the US embassy has to be evacuated, a US defence official says.The USS Bataan was to be in the area “in a matter of days,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, on Tuesday (local time).
by Doug MacEachern, columnist - Nov. 3, 2012 03:39 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
President Barack Obama has been fond of comparing his track record with those of other presidents.
For a time, he evoked the memory of Ronald Reagan as a change agent. At other times, he whimsically weighed his work against the likes of Lincoln and FDR, whose accomplishments possibly could have exceeded his own.
And while he personally hasn't noted many parallels with LBJ -- a president with an Olympian liberal record who, nonetheless, couldn't scare up support for a second term -- Obama genuinely can be said to stand on LBJ's shoulders,
Depending on the outcome of Tuesday's election, though, the president that Obama may come to resemble most is one pretty much all U.S. presidents dread being compared with: Richard Nixon.
On Oct. 26, Obama gave a satellite interview to Kyle Clark, a reporter for the Gannett-owned NBC affiliate in Denver. Perhaps he anticipated a few softball questions, but that is not what he got:
"Were the Americans under attack at the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, denied requests for help during that attack?"
Clark's question regarded the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the American consulate at Benghazi that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. The reporter got a fuzzy non-answer from the president. So, he asked again:
"Were they denied requests for help during the attack?"
Obama again did not directly respond. But he did say this:
"I can tell you, as I have said over the last couple of months, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number 1, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to.
"Number 2, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number 3, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice."
He added:
"And I guarantee you that everyone in the State Department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had Number 1 priority making sure that people were safe."
With those words, the president indicated, with clarity, something that someday he may wish he hadn't: What he knew, when he knew it and what he did about what he knew.
We now know that, at a critical moment in the attack, a direct order from the commander in chief -- a "very clear" directive -- failed to translate into action.
Despite Obama's very clear directive, others around him appear to have taken the president's words, at best, as a mere suggestion.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta later said that upon consultation with the appropriate military brass, no forces were dispatched because "a basic principle is you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on."
So, a Special Operations "in extremis" force whose existence is designed to defend against precisely what was occurring in Benghazi sat out the entire seven-hour battle at a U.S. Air Force base 480 miles away in Italy.
No F-18s were scrambled. No attack helicopters or C-130 gunships, both of which reportedly were available to reach Benghazi within two hours of the start of the attack.
The only Americans to come to the aid of the U.S. citizens trapped in the Benghazi compound was a team of State Department security personnel that chartered a plane in Tripoli, reaching the survivors at a compound about a mile from the consulate.
But the real cavalry, the U.S. military, did nothing, despite repeated pleas for help from the Americans under attack. Despite a direct order from the president to do "whatever we need to do."
On the same day as Obama's interview with Clark, Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin reported that, according to at least two sources "on the ground in Benghazi" during the attack, urgent requests for military aid had been denied by the CIA chain of command.
Among those requesting aid was Tyrone Woods, the ex-Navy SEAL who would die in the latter hours of the attack. Woods' father, Seattle lawyer Charlie Woods, has been increasingly outspoken about his son's death. And he is pointing fingers: "I do not appreciate cowardice, and I do not appreciate lies," Woods said in a telephone interview with Fox News.
Griffin's reporting prompted a curious non-denial denial from CIA Director David Petraeus: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate." The orders did not originate with the CIA then. But someone, clearly, told the military to stand down.
Now, there may be legitimate reasons why so little help arrived in Benghazi. But as it now looks, the particular fog of war masking those reasons won't be lifted till well after Tuesday's election.
Delays in the public's understanding of the issue only temporarily fended off the fury of Watergate for Dick Nixon. At some point, the president is going to have to answer Kyle Clark's question, like it or not.
Sources: Key task force not convened during Benghazi Consulate Attack
(Hopefully Not Already Posted)
By
SHARYL ATTKISSON /
CBS NEWS/ November 1, 2012, 6:02 PM
CBS News has learned that during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Obama Administration did not convene its top interagency counterterrorism resource: the Counterterrorism Security Group, (CSG).
"The CSG is the one group that's supposed to know what resources every agency has. They know of multiple options and have the ability to coordinate counterterrorism assets across all the agencies," a high-ranking government official told CBS News. "They were not allowed to do their job. They were not called upon."
Information shared with CBS News from top counterterrorism sources in the government and military reveal keen frustration over the U.S. response on Sept. 11, the night ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 other Americans were killed in a coordinated attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.
The circumstances of the attack, including the intelligence and security situation there, will be the subject of a Senate Intelligence Committee closed hearing on Nov. 15, with additional hearings to follow.
Counterterrorism sources and internal emails reviewed by CBS News express frustration that key responders were ready to deploy, but were not called upon to help in the attack.
As to why the Counterterrorism Security Group was not convened, National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor told CBS News "From the moment the President was briefed on the Benghazi attack, the response effort was handled by the most senior national security officials in governments. Members of the CSG were of course involved in these meetings and discussions to support their bosses."
Absent coordination from Counterterrorism Security Group, a senior US counterterrorism official says the response to the crisis became more confused. The official says the FBI received a call during the attack representing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and requesting agents be deployed. But he and his colleagues agreed the agents "would not make any difference without security and other enablers to get them in the country and synch their efforts with military and diplomatic efforts to maximize their success."
Another senior counter terrorism official says a hostage rescue team was alternately asked to get ready and then stand down throughout the night, as officials seemed unable to make up their minds.
25 PHOTOS
U.S. consulate attack in Libya
A third potential responder from a counter-terror force stationed in Europe says components of AFICOM -- the military's Africa Command based in Stuttgart, Germany -- were working on course of action during the assault. But no plan was put to use.
"Forces were positioned after the fact but not much good to those that needed it," the military source told CBS News.
"The response process was isolated at the most senior level," says an official referring to top officials in the executive branch. "My fellow counterterrorism professionals and I (were) not consulted."
The official says a protocol set forth in a classified presidential directive calls for the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG) to be convened in the event of a possible terrorist attack. According to a public military document, the directive was designed to "synchronize the efforts of all the government agencies that have a role to play in the Global War on Terrorism."
The Administration also didn't call on the only interagency, on-call, short notice team poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide: the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST). FEST's seasoned experts leave within four hours of notification and can provide "the fastest assistance possible."
FEST Teams deployed immediately after al Qaeda bombings of US embassies in East Africa in 1998, and the USS Cole in 2000, but were not used for Benghazi, to the chagrin of some insiders. It's likely that the CSG task force, if contacted, would have recommended FEST aid.
"First a tactical response was needed," says a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, "and while that was being implemented, the holistic response could have been developed and deployed within hours" which could have allowed the FBI investigate safely on site well ahead of the "24 days it took."
When asked why the FEST wasn't utilized, a State Department official said it was used previously in East Africa because of damage sustained to a US embassy "to help restore communications and other infrastructure support. In this case, that was unnecessary at Embassy Tripoli."
A White House official told us that at the start of the attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta "looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies." He also said a "small group of reinforcements" was sent from Tripoli to Benghazi, but declined to say how many or what time they arrived. The Pentagon moved a team of special operators from central Europe to Sigonella, Italy but gave no other details.
Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans died in a protracted battle over the course of eight hours. It's believed two of the victims, Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, died in a mortar attack some six or seven hours after the US Mission was first overrun by a terrorist mob that burned buildings and used AK-47 rifles, bombs, and mortars.
In the days after the assault, counterterrorism officials expressed dismay over what they interpreted as the Obama Administration's unwillingness to acknowledge that the attack was terrorism; and their opinion that resources which could have helped were excluded.
Counterterrorism officials from two agencies said they concluded almost immediately that the attack was by terrorists and was not spontaneous. "I came to this conclusion as soon as I heard the mortar rounds were impacting on top of the building our people were occupying," says one. "The position of the mortar must be plotted on a map, the target would have to be plotted, computations would be calculated that would result in the proper mortar tube elevation and the correct number of powder bags to be attached to the rounds."
A White House official says President Obama immediately acknowledged the assault was a terrorist attack. However, there was confusion as White House spokesman Jay Carney said three days later, "We have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack."
On Sept.16, US Ambassador Susan Rice told CBS' "Face the Nation" and other talk shows that the assault appeared to have grown from a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video.
CBS' Bob Schieffer asked Rice whether she thought "that this was something that had been plotted out several months ago?" Rice answered, "We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned."
In an interview last week, President Obama said "the minute" he became aware of the Benghazi attack, he directed his staff to "make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to do."
Greg Gutfeld asks ‘why can you politicize bin Laden and not Benghazi?’ [VIDEO]
On Fox News’ Thursday broadcast of “The Five,” co-panelist Greg Gutfeld asked “why you politicize bin Laden and not Benghazi” while mocking Hollywood big shot and Obama-backer Harvey Weinstein for personally stepping in to oversee edits to National Geographic Channel’s documentary about the 2010 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. The documentary, “SEAL Team Six,” is set to be released two days before the presidential election, and the edits are designed to “strengthen Mr. Obama’s role” in the raid.
“So, you know that TV movie about killing bin Laden which airs two days before the election?” Gutfeld said. “It’s now re-edited to make the president’s role more prominent. According to The New York Times — a paper — Obama-backer Harvey Weinstein, who owns the rights to the film, personally stepped in to help recut it to strengthen Mr. Obama’s role. Weinstein and director John Stockwell deny that the changes are politically motivated.”
Gutfeld, author of the forthcoming book “The Joy of Hate: How to Triumph over Whiners in the Age of Phony Outrage,” mocked the timing of Weinstein’s involvement, but added that it is expected given Hollywood’s backing of the president.
“I called myself for a response: ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha’” Gutfeld said. “So, with Obama in trouble, Weinstein re-edits to give Obama more credit. Just a coincidence? Yep. So is getting wet in the rain. Look, we already know Romney is running not just against Obama, but against the Hollywood arm of his own publicity machine. That’s as clear as the nighties in Kimberly [Guilfoyle]’s closet.”
But “The Five” co-panelist also said it raises a question about what’s appropriate for politicization and what isn’t.
“But, it raises questions why can you politicize bin Laden and not Benghazi?” Gutfeld continued. “Obama takes credit for one and avoids responsibility for the other. And what happens if this films triggers mob violence? Will Weinstein be arrested? He’s been silent on the subject of free expression while the anti-Muslim filmmaker sweats in jail. Perhaps Harvey could keep him company. Heck, they could watch the movie together.”
