'NATO playing dirty tricks in Libya war'

Press TV talks with Dr. Webster Tarpley, author and historian from Washington, to further talk over the issue.

Following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: You've called events playing out in Libya, “A carefully cynically planned military operation by the NATO high command; the US playing a very important role in it”. Could you expand on that for us?

Dr. Webster Tarpley: Well, if we just look at events that took place over the weekend in the auspices of NATOs Operation Mermaid Dawn or Operation Siren, we have first of all the carpet bombing of areas around Tripoli by the Royal air force; they're now boasting about the efficacy of their missiles, their brimstone missiles; lots of civilian deaths there.

We had the apache helicopters being used to strafe civilians with machine gun fire if they got in the way of the advance of these al-Qaeda rebels.

We then had an amphibious landing of a series of warships - a NATO fleet that stood off the coast that looked something like, may be not like the Normandy invasion, but like the Raid on Dieppe (1942) or something like that. These were al-Qaeda fighters under European officers and when I say al-Qaeda that's broadly including the Libyan Islamic fighting group.

You then had a prearranged signal - some renegade mosques gave out the call to prayer at the end of the fast “Down with Gaddafi” and that was the signal for death squads, which had infiltrated into the city, to rise up.

There was a series of fake SMS or text messages. You also had NATO bombing the Gaddafi television off the air.

You also had this amazing series of fake reports that Gaddafi had left the country; that Saif (Gaddafi's son in command) had been captured; that Muhammad (Gaddafi) had been captured and other sons of Gaddafi; that Khamis had been captured after his brigade had mutinied and refused to fight. It was all fake.

And then to cap this thing off, most amazing, was this sound stage that NATO with the help of Doha and Qatar created the equivalent of a Hollywood set, which was designed to mimic the appearance of the Green Square.

Those green square buildings are very old, some of them go back to the Roman Empire - but they created that in Doha and if you look there is a very interesting comparison on the Internet where they show you what the Green Square really looks like and what this 'fake set' looks like and it's quite similar, but there were enough giveaways to see that this was also faked.

So this is a tremendous campaign of mass brainwashing and psychological warfare and it had a stunning affect.

But... since they were not able to go all the way with this 'rabble' force that they have there is now a tendency over past days for the Gaddafi forces to regroup and fight back, but in a different way - not holding fixed lines; not trying to defend a compound or a city or anything else, but rather engaging in a warfare of movement; an urban warfare where the previous advantages of the al-Qaeda people - the Benghazi rebels have been vastly diminished.

I think the really big question is - How many rebels have been killed in these big operations? Their supply is not without end; I think there has been a tremendous casualty that has been inflicted on the rebels by Gaddafi forces.

And I wonder how long it will be before some of those rebels decide to go home; they've looted whatever they can loot; maybe they want to take their loot and go home - I think they're going to melt away and the ones that remain behind are going to start killing each other because this is the nature of that beast.

Press TV: At first many US politicians were actually against Obama's Libya involvement, but many have now seemed to have warmed up to the idea. What do they see the US getting in return for its “humanitarian mission” in Libya?

Dr. Webster Tarpley: They think we're getting a facelift for American imperialism; that you can now come forward as the champion for human rights and so forth. This is absolute demagogy of the worst kind.

Victory has many fathers except this is no victory. Some of the people claiming paternity at this point are going to be denying it I think once they see what is happening here.
How should this be different from Afghanistan or Iraq? A foreigner coming from the other side of the world seeking to impose an alien law, in this case on a very proud people with a tradition of independence; remember they gave up a million casualties to get the Italians out; they're the first ones in the world to be on the receiving end of poison gas. You can ask Field Marshall Graziani of the Italians how it is to pacify Libya - It's not very easy at all.

These pretend fighters - this Benghazi rebel council; they're armed forces are the least of it; they're simply something to put on television. The heavy lifting was done by NATO; this was NATO NATO NATO with a few extras walk-on parts just to make this look plausible to international public opinion.

But I think militarily this will go on for a very long time. There is a big province of Fezzan in the south. Those people are black - they're Libyans, they're Arabs and they're black - they're not going to accept the yoke of that racist Benghazi council.

Remember, the Benghazi people distinguished themselves at least at the very beginning by lynching and massacring black Africans - be they from Mali or Chad or from wherever. Or if you were a black Libyan - being black in Benghazi was a capital crime because they would then say you're a Gaddafi mercenary and take care of you.