June 4, 2006
ATTAC Report This Week
American Dollars for the Kingpin of Terror
(Transcript)
 |
Listen to the podcast | |
| mp3 / 5:00 min. / 1.5 MB | ||
Hello. I’m your host, Boruch Ellison, and this is “ATTAC Report This Week” for June 4th, 2006.
You’re probably paying a lot for gasoline these days. But some of that money may be helping terrorists who hate America, because Libyan oil is now both refined and sold in the United States.
Just three weeks ago, the Bush Administration announced the final step in the re-opening of diplomatic relations with Libya, one of the world’s primary sponsors of terrorism. Spokesmen for President Bush further declared that Libya would now be cleared from the official list of governments that support terrorist groups.
That move opens the way for the Libyan regime to receive a whole package of foreign aid programs at American taxpayer expense. Already for the last two years, U.S. corporations have been doing business with that country — including developing its oil industry to help it raise more billions of dollars that will undoubtedly end up in the hands of terror groups.
The Bush Administration justifies this startling policy reversal by claiming that Libya is no longer trying to build nuclear weapons, at least as far as we know. But so far no one has even claimed that Libya has stopped sponsoring violent revolutionaries around the globe. The president simply insists that Libya should be rewarded for allegedly cooperating on the nuclear issue.
U.S. diplomatic relations with Libya were broken back in 1980 as a result of Libya’s role in assisting the world terror network. The 1970s had been known as the “terror decade,” when hundreds of violent revolutionary groups burst into the open. Bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and guerrilla warfare spread rapidly throughout every continent. And Libya was active at the heart of the terror network from the very beginning of the decade.
Col. Muammar Qaddafi had seized power by overthrowing Libya’s king with Soviet backing in 1969. Soon after, the Soviet Union pumped billions of dollars worth of the most advanced weapons into Libyan arsenals while training Libyan soldiers in Eastern Europe. Qaddafi’s Soviet-controlled forces received literally thousands of sophisticated battle tanks and armored vehicles, state-of-the-art fighter and bomber aircraft, and numerous missiles — far more than the small Libyan army could even handle. Many of those weapons ended up in the hands of Marxist revolutionaries and governments throughout Africa, tipping the scales in favor of Communist revolution that has since swept through most of the African continent.
Tens of thousands of Soviet military advisors poured into Libya and soon set up a series of sophisticated paramilitary training camps for terrorists. The instructors came from Soviet Russia, East Germany, Cuba, Communist Syria, and even parts of the PLO. The students arrived from Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
Armed with Soviet guns, bombs, and billions of Libyan dollars, the terrorists returned to their respective countries to launch war from within. Qaddafi’s clients included such murderous names as the Irish Republican Army, the Italian Red Brigades, the Basque ETA of Spain, the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, and many dozens of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world.
Qaddafi also declared war on America, and one of his favorite groups has been the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or DFLP, part of the terrorist PLO. That same DFLP was one of the two groups that officially took credit for attacking New York and Washington, DC, on September 11th, 2001. That means Qaddafi may have helped coordinate the 9/11 attacks.
Nothing has changed in recent times. Libyan aid still flows to terrorist groups and Communist regimes stretching across the globe, from the Philippines to Spain, and from Zimbabwe to the United States. Qaddafi has also been caught smuggling missiles from North Korea and precursors for chemical weapons.
What’s even more disturbing about Bush’s aid to Libya is that his advisors say they plan to give the same friendly treatment to Iran and North Korea.
Thank you for listening. From all of us at ATTAC Report, good-bye.
(“ATTAC Report This Week” is available at www.ATTACReport.com.)