Burlington College: Forward into the Past

It’s been about 30 years since I last taught at Burlington College. At the time it had a different name, Vermont Institute of Community Involvement, also known as VICI, unusual for a college and somewhat misleading – if you assume involvement means an engagement with local issues.

What VICI’s founder actually had in mind was more modest, mainly the use of local venues – libraries, galleries, public buildings, other schools and such – as meeting spaces for classes. Involvement was primarily a question of location for what was called “a school without walls.”

After its first four years, the college had about 100 students, 15 faculty members, and an annual budget of under $200,000. In addition to using existing community spaces for classes rather than focusing on bricks and mortar, VICI also allowed students to design their own academic experience, and used qualitative, written evaluations rather than grades to assess student performance.

But in 1976 enrollment in the school’s associate degree program dropped for the first time. Steward LaCasce, a professor of literature who had launched the college with a small group of friends in 1972, attributed its financial troubles to a decrease in the number of veterans enrolling and a delay in degree-granting privileges for its new B.A. program.

The main building on a new campus

Faced with a growing deficit, LaCasce told the Board of Trustees in February 1977 that either staff salaries needed to be cut or the school might be forced to close. VICI survived that early brush with insolvency and won full accreditation in 1982. Over the next 20 years it became Burlington College, bought property on North Avenue to accommodate its growing staff and provide in-house classroom space, and more than doubled its student body. This year it moved to much larger facilities on land purchased from the Catholic Diocese for $10 million.  

In an exclusive story for vtdigger, I discuss the current challenges confronting the school. See Burlington College Grapples with Growing Pains. In the meantime, here is the story of how I left VICI back in the late 1970s:

The original idea was to attract non-traditional students, those who felt uncomfortable with conventional academic restrictions. About a third of VICI’s first students were young Vietnam era vets. Others were single parents and “adult learners,” people returning to school after a break. That contrasts with today’s younger student body.

At the 1976 annual meeting, held at the Baird Center in October, I joined the Board of Trustees as one of two elected faculty members. There were also two student seats on the Board at that time. After approving a series of bylaws amendments, the group voted to have the chair set up a special committee to evaluate the president’s performance, since he was coming to an end of a five-year term.

Shortly after that, I was elected to the executive committee, which led to an unusual assignment. I was to complete an analysis of the college’s administrative structure and processes, in line with other bylaws changes being considered and, especially, concern that the school might be facing budget cuts. I reviewed documents, observed meetings, and conducted extensive interviews with the staff.

The result was a report, issued in early January 1977, concluding that the administration was divided, morale was low, and the president was seen as mistrustful and isolated. The problems had been brewing, but this put them on paper. My concern, noted at the end of a seven-page report, was that “organizational health may soon be jeopardized.”

A month later, as Lou Colasanti became the school’s first recipient of a Bachelor of Arts degree, LaCasce responded with an analysis of his own during a “special meeting” of the trustees. He acknowledged an atmosphere he described with words like “conflict, demoralization and confusion.” But his main point was that fewer vets were applying and the Associate Degree program had been neglected in favor of new psychology and self-designed B.A. programs.  The result was a serious, survival-threatening situation:

As LaCasce presented it in his February 5 report, there were three choices:

1. Cut all staff salaries by 10 percent, but increase a half-time institutional services position to full time to improve morale. That would mean work over the next months to balance the budget.

2. Eliminate almost all staff positions, with the president and a few others taking on more tasks. This could be even more demoralizing, he admitted, and would require that the Board of Trustees  begin fundraising, or

3.  Close the College on June 30, 1977.

Unless the school was closing, he added, he wanted “the authority to suspend the current College committee structure until the Spring Meeting of the Board.” It was a bold move, designed to preempt the growing discontent among faculty and students.     

Two days later he asked me into his office. I was being fired, he explained, for three reasons. First, during the previous week I had participated in a student meeting that he considered disruptive. Second, I’ had said at a meeting that I was willing to accept a reduced salary due to the budget problems. This undermined other staff members, he charged. And finally, unity was necessary and other staff members didn’t trust me.

Afterward, I asked around and learned that his decision had been completely unilateral. No member of the staff or Board had requested that he fire me. In fact, the core staff disagreed.

Over the next few days a petition began to circulate and a community meeting was announced.  The idea was to combine my firing with some pro-active ideas, including a fundraising project and more student involvement in recruitment, curriculum and development.  In the meantime, LaCasce sent me two letters. The first was an immediate dismissal, although it ended with this:

“I’m extremely sorry that things have worked out this way, and I believe that many of your ideas will, in time, be incorporated as part of VICI.”

That didn’t prove to be true In fact, as VICI became BC it dropped some of the elements that had made it different than other colleges. What elements? Consider Article III from the original by-laws, concerning the powers of the Trustees.

The President, although having extensive authority, was treated somewhat like an elected official. In Article III, one section outlined what should happen before the president’s “term of office” expired. A nominating committee “shall be established to solicit names of possible candidates, and to submit to the trustees its choice of the best candidate.” The committee itself was to be composed of both trustees and others “nominated by the Policy Committee and ratified by a majority of the students and faculty.” That’s community involvement in an important institutional process.

On February 10, 1977, a day before the community meeting, I received another letter from LaCasce. “Many of your friends and students have asked me for specific details to support my decision,” he began. “I have said that I thought you could not work constructively within VICI this spring to help us reorganize the College and reach the goals that our trustees set at their February 5th meeting.” But he was willing to attend the meeting, he added, and would be more specific in public. It was an offer I could not refuse.

To be continued...

Intelligence Gap in a "Wonderful World"

The shape of 2012 Republican politics -- a brief musical interlude, based on the classic song by Sam Cooke, the King of Soul.

Libya Revisited: Images from Better Days

Muammar in Paris, talking revolution

Here is a rare collection of photos, with annotations, that give a sense of Libya before Cold War II, Reagan's enemies list, and the search for new designated enemies when the Soviet Union collapsed. Some are from a large format yearbook that was passed on by a prominent Republican in 1980. Though clearly propaganda it expressed a revolutionary spirit and commitment to "liberate man from all subjugation, backwardness and exploitation." It talked about "the Arab man," socialism, international solidarity and the role of sharia, with a large emphasis on rapid growth, industrial revolution, and universal health care and education. Clearly, the vision of a madman. CLICK HERE to see all seven images and related notes.

Lockheed Loses Burlington Showdown

Deal Derailed by People Power;

Reveals Prog Identity Crisis

By Greg Guma

As progressives around the country salivate at the possibility that Bernie Sanders, US Senator and Independent Socialist, might consider running for president in 2012, residents of the Vermont city where he made his political breakthrough have roundly rejected the approach he and his local allies have been taking to military contractor Lockheed Martin. On Sept. 2, the defense contractor backed out of a deal signed with the mayor in an e-mail message to the Burlington Free Press.

City Hall Auditorium was packed.

On Monday August 8, after more than six months of local debate, Burlington’s City Council voted 8-6 in favor of nonbinding community standards for proposed climate-change partnerships, prompted by an agreement between the city and Lockheed Martin. The resolution calls for standards which, if followed, would exclude working agreements on climate change with weapons manufacturers and polluters. 

.

Three weeks later, Rob Fuller, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, explained, "While several projects showed promise initially and we have learned a tremendous amount from each other, we were unable to develop a mutually beneficial implementation plan. Therefore Lockheed Martin has decided to conclude the current collaboration." It read like a Dear John, and a silent bow to public pressure.

The latest developments represent a rejection of the deal signed with Lockheed by Mayor Bob Kiss last December. Kiss defied public pressure and the City Council, whose authority over such partnerships was called into question. After the Council vote the mayor's response was defiant. Discussions with the corporation would continue, he said. A few weeks later they were over.

UPDATE (8/16): Vermont Progressives want Burlington Mayor to delay Lockheed action and explain himself

Throughout the dispute Sanders refused to comment on the deal. Yet his typical views on corporate criminals and wasteful military spending are part of what makes him such a compelling potential alternative for the 2012 presidential race. Consider his fiery speech in October 2009 on the floor of the US Senate, taking on Lockheed Martin and other top military contractors for what he called their “systemic, illegal, and fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.”

Among other crimes, he mentioned how Lockheed had defrauded the government by fraudulently inflating the cost of several Air Force contracts, lied about the costs when negotiating contracts for the repairs on US warships, and submitted false invoices for payment on a multi-billion dollar contract connected to the Titan IV space launch vehicle program.

Sanders labeled the corporation a “repeat offender” that rarely faces serious penalties. “It is absurd that year after year after year, these companies continue doing the same things and they continue to get away with it,” he said.

Yet he and Mayor Kiss both invited the company to Vermont. For two years Sanders has been working with local energy companies and the University of Vermont to bring a satellite of the Lockheed subsidiary Sandia Laboratories to the state, while simultaneously welcoming the prospect that Lockheed-built F-35s might be bedded at the Burlington International Airport.  As Sanders has put it, if F-35s are going to be built and deployed, he prefers to see the work done by Vermonters.

Sanders visited Sandia headquarters in New Mexico in 2008. In January 2010 he took the next major step – organizing a delegation of Vermonters. The group included Green Mountain Power CEO Mary Powell; Domenico Grasso, vice president for research at the University of Vermont; David Blittersdorf, co-founder of NRG Systems and CEO of Earth Turbines; and Scott Johnston, CEO of the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation, which runs Efficiency Vermont.

Despite concerns about Lockheed’s bad corporate behavior Sanders apparently doesn’t think that inviting a subsidiary to Burlington means helping them to get away with anything. Rather, he envisions Vermont transformed “into a real-world lab for the entire nation” through a partnership. “We're at the beginning of something that could be of extraordinary significance to Vermont and the rest of the country,” he said.

UPDATE: VPR News: In Burlington, Mayor, Council Divided On Lockheed Partnership

Sanders painted a rosy picture. Businesses, ratepayers and researchers would get a boost. A $1 million DoE planning grant was arranged. More support from the Department of Energy is expected as the project gains steam. Sandia Vice President Richard Stulen has confirmed Bernie’s pledge that no weapons development work will be involved. The focus, he promises, will be cutting edge research on cyber security, specifically a “smart grid” and stopping hacker attacks.

Sandia sees Vermont’s energy infrastructure as an “ideal place” to create a model for the rest of the country. The Department of Energy is reportedly impressed with work underway in the state on forward-looking renewable energy technology, as well as a willingness to “tinker with related policies and regulations.” True to the Lockheed playbook, Sandia has defined the lab’s mission as energy “security.” But the big carrot is the prospect of not only some jobs but a chance for Vermont businesses to get a “global competitive edge.”

The letter of cooperation between the city and Lockheed backed up this argument. Lockheed Martin Corporation Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Ray O. Johnson stressed national security and “the economic and strategic challenges posed by our dependence on foreign oil and the potential destabilizing effects of climate change.” The Burlington partnership, he said, would “demonstrate a model for sustainability that can be replicated across the nation."

On December 20, 2010 the Burlington mayor’s office announced the results of Mayor Kiss’s negotiations, begun at billionaire Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room. It was a “letter of cooperation” with Lockheed Martin to address climate change by developing green-energy solutions. The plan is vague, mentioning “sustainable business models” and analysis, and “energy and transportation technologies,” but Kiss envisions more fuel efficient vehicles, improving the use of steam from the city-owned generating station, and generally turning “swords into ploughshares.”

Anti-Lockheed organizer Jonathan Leavitt testifies.

The conflict between years of anti-corporate, peace movement rhetoric in the city and the decision by the two main elected leaders of the state’s progressive movement to make research and development deals with a powerful corporation – especially one that activists considered a war profiteer and corporate criminal – has since set off a local revolt and a moment of self-assessment.

Defense contracts represent less than five percent of state GDP, but substantially more in the Champlain Valley, home base for the two largest companies, General Dynamics and Simmonds Precision. Between 2000 and 2011 around 600 companies received $7 billion in contracts. Chittenden County was the big winner but there were smaller businesses employing people in almost every county, producing guns, ammunition, “quick reaction” equipment, explosive components, missiles and aircraft parts. The main Congressional booster for military jobs is Vermont's senior US senator, Patrick Leahy, who frequently makes appearances at factories to announce major contracts.

On the other hand, Burlington has a rich history of social activism, and has developed a series of foreign policy initiatives over the last three decades. As Ken Picard has explained in Seven Days, the city’s successful left-leaning weekly, the debate touches on “a bigger issue about Burlington identity and the corporations with which it chooses to associate: Given the dire predictions about imminent and catastrophic climate change, should the city accept Lockheed Martin’s technical help, and ample dollars, in the interest of achieving the greater good?

“Or, should Burlington refuse to lend its name and reputation to help burnish the image of the world’s largest maker of weapons of mass destruction? In short, is Lockheed Martin ‘beating swords into ploughshares,’ as Mayor Kiss had characterized it, or engaging in corporate greenwashing at Burlington’s expense?”

Those questions have not yet been resolved. The initial opportunity to discuss them came on February 7, 2011. City Hall Auditorium was crowded that night as the City Council considered the mayor’s arrangement with the company. In a scene reminiscent of the early days of the Sanders era, dozens of local citizens told their leaders why they didn’t approve of the deal. The August 8 meeting attracted a similar audience and the same sort of concern.

UPDATE: Corporate Person Martin Lockheed's speech at a Burlington Public Forum / "...Don’t be swayed by prejudice against corporate people. We deserve rights, just like everyone else. And we have so much to offer. Of course, we can’t talk about some of it. You know, National Security."

Bob Kiss is considerably less popular as mayor than he was two years ago. Major financial trouble have been uncovered in the financing and operation of Burlington Telecom, one of the major initiatives of the city’s Progressive administration. City government spent $17 million to build a system to deliver Internet, Cable TV and telephone services in the city. It also borrowed $33.5 million. But it hasn’t been able to handle the payments and the lender is threatening to repossess millions in equipment.

The city has defended Chief Administrative Officer Jonathan Leopold, first appointed to local office by Sanders more than 25 years ago, and itself in state investigations and a lawsuit filed by two taxpayers who want the enterprise sold off to help retire the debt.* Burlington Telecom is under interim management and actively looking for a private partner. But the prospects for finding a “white knight” while holding onto a minority stake aren’t bright, and the scandal has badly damaged the mayor’s reputation, not to mention the future prospects of the local Progressive Party.

The arrangement with Lockheed reinforced local anger. Left-leaning residents were shocked and angry that the city administration wanted to partner with a corporation that Sanders himself considers one of the biggest corporate perpetrators. In various speeches he has noted, for example, that it is number one in contractor misconduct, having engaged in 57 instances since 1995 and paid $577 million in fines and settlements.

In February, after more than an hour of public comments, the City Council instructed Mayor Kiss to put his arrangement on hold until they had more information and a public hearing was held. The resolution also called for serious effort on climate change and city standards for companies hoping to work with the city. However, a city attorney argued that since the mayor didn’t need Council approval to sign the agreement, he isn’t bound by its decision.

Sanders declined to be interviewed about Lockheed, the F-35s or his work with Sandia on a regional lab, except to say that any work done in Vermont will not involve weapons research or development. But when caught at a speech in Boston a few days after the February City Council vote and asked about local objections in Burlington, he told a journalist testily that he was misinformed. There was no opposition in his home town, Sanders said.

Mayor Bob Kiss and Kurt Wright.

Be that as it may, the City Council had voted to set standards that would clearly exclude Lockheed. Opposing the decision were a coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans, including potential mayor candidate Kurt Wright. That puts a leading local Republican on the same side of the issue as Mayor Kiss, a Progressive at the end of his second term. But the anti-Lockheed resolution was proposed by another Progressive, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, and was backed by the only other City Council Progressive and most Democrats, including Ed Adrian, a leading critic of the Kiss administration who had earlier proposed outright rejection of Lockheed.

UPDATE: Kiss responds to public sentiment. Negotiations "are ongoing," veto of Council vote possible.

The dynamic dramatizes the rift that has developed between the grassroots progressive movement in Burlington and its own political leadership. Sanders’ name never came up at the August City Council showdown, but most people in the room were aware that their famous Senator has helped Sandia get a Vermont foothold, and also backs F-35 deployment at the airport despite substantial community opposition.

Mayor Kiss has insisted that the climate crisis requires radical action, while Sanders feels comfortable ignoring local opponents. According to recent polls, the 70-year-old Independent Senator is a prohibitive favorite for re-election next year – unless, of course, he’s serious about a possible presidential bid. He is, after all, a great admirer of Eugene Debs.

The outcome in Burlington, central base of the Vermont progressive movement for more than 30 years, is less certain. After experimenting with instant runoff voting, city residents repealed that initiative in 2010, largely at the urging of Wright, who almost defeated Kiss in 2009. Now that the old system has been restored, a mayoral candidate only needs to run first with at least 40 percent to win. That’s how Sanders did it in 1981, becoming mayor with slightly over 40 percent and a 10-vote margin.  

Based on his past performance Wright is within reach of victory, especially now that Kiss has alienated the progressive left wing and scandals like Burlington Telecom have soiled the administration’s image. Even if Kiss opts not to run again, or is rejected at the Progressive caucus, his party will need to heal its divisions and agree on a candidate capable of beating ambitious Democrats and Republicans, who smell victory for the first time in years. 

The best hope for Burlington Progressives at the moment is a Democrat sympathetic to their basic ideas. If they don’t strike a bargain with one, the coalition movement that launched Bernie Sanders, but has been losing momentum for several years, may be entering its final days.

The Burlington City Council; Progressive Emma Mulvaney-Stanak at far right.

*  In July Leopold explained under oath the city’s rationale for not revealing to the state the improper use of $17 million in general city funds to keep Burlington Telecom afloat in 2008 and 2009. The plan was to get new commercial financing for BT — which would allow repayment of the city money — and then announce the violation of the municipally owned utility’s state license to the Department of Public Service. “We would address the issue of non-compliance,” Leopold said, “when we felt we had a cure.” But the plan failed in late 2009 when the City Council, newly alerted to BT’s financial troubles, refused to authorize new debt.

LAST REVISION: 9/2/2011, 6 PM EST

Special Report: Libya & the World We Live In

Rumors of a massacre were greatly exaggerated by the US, NATO, the EU and al Jazeera – the Fox News of the Libyan uprising

By William Blum

"Why are you attacking us? Why are you killing our children? Why are you destroying our infrastructure?"– Television address by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, April 30, 2011

A few hours later NATO hit a target in Tripoli, killing Gaddafi's 29-year-old son Saif al-Arab, three of Gaddafi's grandchildren, all under twelve years of age, and several friends and neighbors.

In his TV address, Gaddafi had appealed to the NATO nations for a cease-fire and negotiations after six weeks of bombings and cruise missile attacks against his country.

Well, let's see if we can derive some understanding of the complex Libyan turmoil.

The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO and the European Union — recognizes no higher power and believes, literally, that it can do whatever it wants in the world, to whomever it wants, for as long as it wants, and call it whatever it wants, like "humanitarian".

If The Holy Triumvirate decides that it doesn't want to overthrow the government in Syria or in Egypt or Tunisia or Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Jordan, no matter how cruel, oppressive, or religiously intolerant those governments are with their people, no matter how much they impoverish and torture their people, no matter how many protesters they shoot dead in their Freedom Square, the Triumvirate will simply not overthrow them.

If the Triumvirate decides that it wants to overthrow the government of Libya, though that government is secular and has used its oil wealth for the benefit of the people of Libya and Africa perhaps more than any government in all of Africa and the Middle East, but keeps insisting over the years on challenging the Triumvirate's imperial ambitions in Africa and raising its demands on the Triumvirate's oil companies, then the Triumvirate will simply overthrow the government of Libya.

If the Triumvirate wants to punish Gaddafi and his sons it will arrange with the Triumvirate's friends at the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for them.

If the Triumvirate doesn't want to punish the leaders of Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Jordan it will simply not ask the ICC to issue arrest warrants for them. Ever since the Court first formed in 1998, the United States has refused to ratify it and has done its best to denigrate it and throw barriers in its way because Washington is concerned that American officials might one day be indicted for their many war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bill Richardson, as US ambassador to the UN, said to the world in 1998 that the United States should be exempt from the court's prosecution because it has "special global responsibilities". But this doesn't stop the United States from using the Court when it suits the purposes of American foreign policy.

If the Triumvirate wants to support a rebel military force to overthrow the government of Libya then it does not matter how fanatically religious, al-Qaeda-related, executing-beheading-torturing, monarchist, or factionally split various groups of that rebel force are at times, the Triumvirate will support it, as it did certain forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hope that after victory the Libyan force will not turn out as jihadist as it did in Afghanistan, or as fratricidal as in Iraq. One potential source of conflict within the rebels, and within the country if ruled by them, is that a constitutional declaration made by the rebel council states that, while guaranteeing democracy and the rights of non-Muslims, "Islam is the religion of the state and the principle source of legislation in Islamic Jurisprudence."

Adding to the list of the rebels' charming qualities we have the Amnesty International report that the rebels have been conducting mass arrests of black people across the nation, terming all of them "foreign mercenaries" but with growing evidence that a large number were simply migrant workers.

Reported Reuters (August 29): "On Saturday, reporters saw the putrefying bodies of 22 men of African origin on a Tripoli beach. Volunteers who had come to bury them said they were mercenaries whom rebels had shot dead." To complete this portrait of the West's newest darlings we have this report from The Independent of London (August 27): "The killings were pitiless. They had taken place at a makeshift hospital, in a tent marked clearly with the symbols of the Islamic crescent. Some of the dead were on stretchers, attached to intravenous drips. Some were on the back of an ambulance that had been shot at. A few were on the ground, seemingly attempting to crawl to safety when the bullets came."

If the Triumvirate's propaganda is clever enough and deceptive enough and paints a graphic picture of Gaddafi-initiated high tragedy in Libya, many American and European progressives will insist that though they never, ever support imperialism they're making an exception this time because ...

The Libyan people are being saved from a "massacre", both actual and potential. This massacre, however, seems to have been grossly exaggerated by the Triumvirate, al Jazeera TV, and that station's owner, the government of Qatar; and nothing approaching reputable evidence of a massacre has been offered, neither a mass grave or anything else; the massacre stories appear to be on a par with the Viagra-rape stories spread by al Jazeera (the Fox News of the Libyan uprising). Qatar, it should be noted, has played an active military role in the civil war on the side of NATO. It should be further noted that the main massacre in Libya has been six months of daily Triumvirate bombing, killing an unknown number of people and ruining much of the infrastructure. Michigan U. Prof. Juan Cole, the quintessential true-believer in the good intentions of American foreign policy who nevertheless manages to have a regular voice in progressive media, recently wrote that "Qaddafi was not a man to compromise ... his military machine would mow down the revolutionaries if it were allowed to." Is that clear, class? We all know of course that Sarkozy, Obama, and Cameron made compromises without end in their devastation of Libya; they didn't, for example, use any nuclear weapons.

The United Nations gave its approval for military intervention; i.e., the leading members of the Triumvirate gave their approval, after Russia and China cowardly abstained instead of exercising their veto power; (perhaps hoping to receive the same courtesy from the US, UK and France when Russia or China is the aggressor nation).

The people of Libya are being "liberated", whatever in the world that means, now or in the future. Gaddafi is a "dictator" they insist. That may indeed be the proper term to use for the man, but it must still be asked: Is he a relatively benevolent dictator or is he the other kind so favored by Washington? It must also be asked: Since the United States has habitually supported dictators for the entire past century, why not this one?

The Triumvirate, and its fawning media, would have the world believe that what's happened in Libya is just another example of the Arab Spring, a popular uprising by non-violent protestors against a dictator for the proverbial freedom and democracy, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia and Egypt, which sandwich Libya. But there are several reasons to question this analysis in favor of seeing the Libyan rebels' uprising as a planned and violent attempt to take power in behalf of their own political movement, however heterogeneous that movement might appear to be in its early stage. For example:

1.They soon began flying the flag of the monarchy that Gaddafi had overthrown

2.They were an armed and violent rebellion almost from the beginning; within a few days, we could read of "citizens armed with weapons seized from army bases" and of "the policemen who had participated in the clash were caught and hanged by protesters"

3.Their revolt took place not in the capital but in the heart of the country's oil region; they then began oil production and declared that foreign countries would be rewarded oil-wise in relation to how much each country aided their cause

4.They soon set up a Central Bank, a rather bizarre thing for a protest movement

5.International support came quickly, even beforehand, from Qatar and al Jazeera to the CIA and French intelligence

The notion that a leader does not have the right to put down an armed rebellion against the state is too absurd to discuss.

Not very long ago, Iraq and Libya were the two most modern and secular states in the Mideast/North Africa world with perhaps the highest standards of living in the region. Then the United States of America came along and saw fit to make a basket case of each one. The desire to get rid of Gaddafi had been building for years; the Libyan leader had never been a reliable pawn; then the Arab Spring provided the excellent opportunity and cover. As to Why? Take your pick of the following:

* Gaddafi's plans to conduct Libya's trading in Africa in raw materials and oil in a new currency — the gold African dinar, a change that could have delivered a serious blow to the US's dominant position in the world economy. (In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced Iraqi oil would be traded in euros, not dollars; sanctions and an invasion followed.)

* A host-country site for Africom, the US Africa Command, one of six regional commands the Pentagon has divided the world into. Many African countries approached to be the host have declined, at times in relatively strong terms. Africom at present is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. According to a State Department official: "We've got a big image problem down there. ... Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don't trust the US."

* An American military base to replace the one closed down by Gaddafi after he took power in 1969. There's only one such base in Africa, in Djibouti. Watch for one in Libya sometime after the dust has settled. It'll perhaps be situated close to the American oil wells. Or perhaps the people of Libya will be given a choice — an American base or a NATO base.

* Another example of NATO desperate to find a raison d'être for its existence since the end of the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact.

* Gaddafi's role in creating the African Union. The corporate bosses never like it when their wage slaves set up a union. The Libyan leader has also supported a United States of Africa for he knows that an Africa of 54 independent states will continue to be picked off one by one and abused and exploited by the members of the Triumvirate. Gaddafi has moreover demanded greater power for smaller countries in the United Nations.

* The claim by Gaddafi's son, Saif el Islam, that Libya had helped to fund Nicolas Sarkozy's election campaign6could have humiliated the French president and explain his obsessiveness and haste in wanting to be seen as playing the major role in implementing the "no fly zone" and other measures against Gaddafi. A contributing factor may have been the fact that France has been weakened in its former colonies and neo-colonies in Africa and the Middle East, due in part to Gaddafi's influence.

* Gaddafi has been an outstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause and critic of Israeli policies; and on occasion has taken other African and Arab countries, as well as the West, to task for their not matching his policies or rhetoric; one more reason for his lack of popularity amongst world leaders of all stripes.

* In January, 2009, Gaddafi made known that he was considering nationalizing the foreign oil companies in Libya.7 He also has another bargaining chip: the prospect of utilizing Russian, Chinese and Indian oil companies. During the current period of hostilities, he invited these countries to make up for lost production. But such scenarios will now not take place. The Triumvirate will instead seek to privatize the National Oil Corporation, transferring Libya's oil wealth into foreign hands.

* The American Empire is troubled by any threat to its hegemony. In the present historical period the empire is concerned mainly with Russia and China. China has extensive energy investments and construction investments in Libya and elsewhere in Africa. The average American neither knows nor cares about this. The average American imperialist cares greatly, if for no other reason than in this time of rising demands for cuts to the military budget it's vital that powerful "enemies" be named and maintained.

For yet more reasons, see the article "Why Regime Change in Libya?" by Ismael Hossein-zadeh, and the US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks — Wikileaks reference 07TRIPOLI967 11-15-07 (includes a complaint about Libyan "resource nationalism")

A word from the man the world's mightiest military powers have been trying to kill

"Recollections of My Life", written by Col. Muammar Gaddafi, April 8, 2011, excerpts:

Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called "capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer, so, there is no alternative for me, I must make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following his path, the path that has made our country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab brothers and sisters to work here with us ... I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands who are all my children, then so be it. ... In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy". They know the truth but continue to lie, they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip…

Perhaps the worst outcome of the United States "winning the Cold War" is that countless progressive people think there's no alternative to the capitalist system. Seventy years of anti-communist education and media stamped in people's minds a lasting association between socialism and what the Soviet Union called communism. Socialism meant a dictatorship, it meant Stalinist repression, a suffocating "command economy", no freedom of enterprise, no freedom to change jobs, few avenues for personal expression, and other similar truths and untruths. This is a set of beliefs clung to even amongst many Americans opposed to US foreign policy. No matter how bad the economy is, Americans think, the only alternative available is something called "communism", and they know how awful that is.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party USA has endorsed Barack Obama for re-election.

Distributed with permission. William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir and Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire.  For more of his articles, go to www.killinghope.org