The Legal Logic Of Attacking Gaddafi

May 1, 2011

Protection of civilians

4. Authorizes Member States […] to take all necessary measures […] to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya …
UNSC Resolution 1973 (2011)

—

Nato air strike 'kills Gaddafi's son'

An apparent attempt to kill Colonel Muammar Gaddafi failed late last night when the Libyan leader escaped unharmed from a reported direct hit by a Nato air strike on his youngest son's house. However, his son Saif and three of his grandchildren were killed, according to a government spokesman.
[…]
The one-story house in a Tripoli residential neighbourhood was heavily damaged. Libyan officials took journalists to the house, which had been hit by at least three missiles.
[…]
The attack was not the first on Tripoli yesterday.

Strikes in the morning damaged a building which houses the Libyan Down's Syndrome Society, and the government commission for children, according to evidence shown to journalists by officials. The force of the blast blew in windows and doors in the parent-funded school for children, and officials said it damaged an orphanage on the floor above. "I felt sad really. I kept thinking, what are we going to do with these children?" said Ismail Seddigh, who set up the school 17 years ago after his own daughter was born with Down's Syndrome.

It seems reasonable to conclude that it is necessary to fight the attacking NATO countries "to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya." Also some lawyers have obviously resolved that "all necessary measures" include the killing of the attacking leaders and their families. The UNSC has authorized all UN member states to take "all necessary measures."

I wonder if Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama have reflected about the consequences of the legal logic they are creating here. Micronesia can now legally assassinate them. If it only gets their children that's of course just collateral damage in an attempt to fulfill the UN resolution to "protect civilians."

Posted by b on May 1, 2011 at 09:05 UTC | Permalink

Comments

To nullify the underlying principles of the Treaty of Westphalia may indeed be akin to opening Pandora’s box, especially in the absence of any signs that the Nuremberg principles are only applied to “the losers”. It is desirable to see due legal process applied to such obvious candidates for indictment as war criminals (both for initiating wars of aggression and for deliberately contravening the Geneva conventions on torture, or for failing to initiate legal procedures against those guilty of these crimes) as Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Obama, as well as
numerous “second tierf” enablers. The rare heroes (from General Taguba to Private Manning) are often punished, while the criminals are invariable exalted by their adulatory accomplices of the “official media”.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 1 2011 10:25 utc | 1

Great story and comment.
America is truly one of the most hypocritical “great powers” that there has ever been. The good news is that its day on the world stage is drawing towards and end.

Posted by: Joseph | May 1 2011 10:36 utc | 2

A friend sent this link, which I read an hour or two before hearing about the bombs dropped on Qaddafi’s family. I am not familiar with the source and have some questions. I don’t know if there is a second front in Benghazi, or enough about Italian politics to have any sense of how true this may be, but thought it worth noting. b and commenters here may know more.
The Murder of Muammar Qaddafi Is Planned For May 2, 2011
which includes:

This urgent decision was taken due to a chain of failures that have ruined original plans by anti-Libyan coalition: successes of regular Libyan army, the joining of Bedouin tribes to pro-Qaddafi forces and the creation of “second front” in Benghazi. This front consists of the armed groups of civil militia, ordinary citizens who are seeking restoration of the rule of law in Benghazi. They declared that they wouldn’t stand so-called “rebels” any more in their city, who are fighting each other and expose violence on city’s population.
The main reason for so fast-track preparations of the assassination of Libyan leader is the recent decision of Italian parliament to discuss the course of anti-Gaddafi company during a special session, which will be held on May 3, 2011. Now the matter is still handled by Silvio Berlusconi’s party. Emerging disagreements in the ruling coalition of Italy on the issue of war in Libya may lead to the decay of the Italian coalition next week. In this case Berlusconi will lose his post of Prime Minister and Italy would leave anti-Libyan coalition for some time or maybe even forever.
Such political success of anti-war sentiments in Italy can lead to the splash of similar anti-war moods in other countries that would make impossible to reach the declared goals of the war against Gaddafi. Leaders of Great Britain, France and the USA perceive this perspective quite seriously and so the proposal to kill informal leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, not later than 2nd of May – before the session of Italian Parliament – was accepted. The leaders of coalition are sure that Gaddafi’s death would destroy spiritual union of Libyan forces and make them incapable to resist international aggression or at least would significantly weaken and demoralize them.

Posted by: xcroc | May 1 2011 11:45 utc | 3

thanks xcroc, that explains it.
I wonder now about plan C.

Posted by: somebody | May 1 2011 11:52 utc | 4

oh and this documentation is from 2008 when Ghaddafi was liked by the West
http://www.radio-utopie.de/2011/04/29/muammar-al-gaddafi-oder-das-libysche-paradox/
French/German – it should be spread

Posted by: somebody | May 1 2011 13:01 utc | 5

CNN confirms the second front in Benghazi
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/05/01/libya.war/

Posted by: somebody | May 1 2011 13:38 utc | 6

Juan Cole “I’m going to play skeptic on the Libyan government account of the NATO airstrike”.

Posted by: georgeg | May 1 2011 14:52 utc | 7

I am watching TeleSur TV and they are transmitting live pictures of the attack on MQ son home. This is a war crime. Also they are transmitting live pictures from Syria what a different view then most European news stations especially BBC who seem to show the same pictures over and over again! A question why has the UNSC not sent investigators to Libya or Syria to check the claims and counter claims. Do not the rest of the world have a voice. Disgusting!

Posted by: hans | May 1 2011 15:28 utc | 8

A question why has the UNSC not sent investigators to Libya or Syria to check the claims and counter claims.
I think I have answered that one already.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 1 2011 15:57 utc | 9

Related to @1, another Pandora’s box created by erasing the past quaint rules:
Hernando de Soto

During the second half of the 19th century, the world’s biggest economies endured a series of brutal recessions. At the time, most forms of reliable economic knowledge were organized within feudal, patrimonial, and tribal relationships. If you wanted to know who owned land or owed a debt, it was a fact recorded locally—and most likely shielded from outsiders. At the same time, the world was expanding. Travel between cities and countries became more common and global trade increased. The result was a huge rift between the old, fragmented social order and the needs of a rising, globalizing market economy.
To prevent the breakdown of industrial and commercial progress, hundreds of creative reformers concluded that the world needed a shared set of facts. Knowledge had to be gathered, organized, standardized, recorded, continually updated, and easily accessible—so that all players in the world’s widening markets could, in the words of France’s free-banking champion Charles Coquelin, “pick up the thousands of filaments that businesses are creating between themselves.”
The result was the invention of the first massive “public memory systems” to record and classify—in rule-bound, certified, and publicly accessible registries, titles, balance sheets, and statements of account—all the relevant knowledge available, whether intangible (stocks, commercial paper, deeds, ledgers, contracts, patents, companies, and promissory notes), or tangible (land, buildings, boats, machines, etc.). Knowing who owned and owed, and fixing that information in public records, made it possible for investors to infer value, take risks, and track results. The final product was a revolutionary form of knowledge: “economic facts.”
Over the past 20 years, Americans and Europeans have quietly gone about destroying these facts. The very systems that could have provided markets and governments with the means to understand the global financial crisis—and to prevent another one—are being eroded. Governments have allowed shadow markets to develop and reach a size beyond comprehension. Mortgages have been granted and recorded with such inattention that homeowners and banks often don’t know and can’t prove who owns their homes. In a few short decades the West undercut 150 years of legal reforms that made the global economy possible…

Fallujah, Gaza, TARP, derivatives, it’s all a plot to explode the heads of principled people everywhere and leave a rat’s nest of base avarice and spoils.
Meanwhile, over at The Daily Kos

Posted by: Biklett | May 1 2011 16:18 utc | 10

“It’s worse than a crime; it’s a blunder.”
Talleyrand

Posted by: Mercurtio | May 1 2011 17:19 utc | 11

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/bishop-confirms-gaddafi-sons-death-20110502-1e3ko.html

Posted by: somebody | May 1 2011 18:22 utc | 12

Thanks all for the links. They provide food for thought. What is crystal clear here is this….The Global ruling elite have decided Mr. Q must go, & they will have their way. Truth, Law & Justice be dammed. Conspiracy? Nope, just the end result of too much power in too few hands.

Posted by: ben | May 1 2011 18:39 utc | 13

we are witnessing what the empire does best – common murder
they slaughter people as they slaughter everything, subject & object

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 1 2011 19:10 utc | 14

somebody @ 6 — I read the CNN article you link to, but I’m not sure the forces firing on Misrati and Benghazi are a second front — or am I misunderstanding? Have citizens of those cities formed their own anti-rebel front or have they joined with pro-gov’t forces to launch attacks on the rebels?
Was an earlier version of the article more clear about this? Thanks!

Posted by: jawbone | May 1 2011 21:36 utc | 15

hans @ 8 — If you have time, could you share more of what you’re able to view? It’s pretty one-sided here in the US, and I’d appreciate learning more about what’s being seen elsewhere. Thanks.

Posted by: jawbone | May 1 2011 21:39 utc | 16

Meet the rebels: cartoons from the streets of Benghazi
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/funny-anti-gaddafi-cartoons-reveal-rebel-racism-anti-semitism/
Note also that british journalist and muslim convert Yvonne Ridley had a conversion experience on the road to Benghazi, and now she supports NATO bombings…but has she seen the real racist side of the rebels?

Posted by: brian | May 1 2011 22:00 utc | 17

ALSO why did UNSC authorise NATO to invade Libya? if its peacekeeping,which is what RES 1973 sounds like, why not use peacekeeping forces form Africa? NATO is NOT a peackeeper..what its doing is a rerun of the Nazi BLITZ on London

Posted by: brian | May 1 2011 22:02 utc | 18

That is an excellent link brian provided @17. Certainly worth some further analysis and discussion.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 1 2011 22:53 utc | 19

I somehow doubt that the murder of Saif and three of Gaddafi’s grandchildren is a “blunder” at all. I am only surprised that apparently there aren’t enough photographers’ boots on the ground to emblazon the news with grisly pictures of the corpses they way they did with Uday and Qusay Hussein.
My impression is that if you catch the attention of the Empire, it has become standard operating procedure to play cat and mouse a bit… destroying your country’s civilians and infrastructure first, and then your family, before moving in for the kill… all in that order.
There is probably some political or economic motive behind it beyond the obvious message sent that “This is what happens to people who don’t play ball,” but I haven’t spent enough time rubbing elbows with cartels of gangsters and thugs to understand precisely why they behave as formulaically as they do.
It’s also possible that I am looking too deeply for a rationale behind what is, essentially, a Fixed Action Pattern (making the “cat-and-mouse” descriptor particularly apt.)

Posted by: Monolycus | May 1 2011 23:39 utc | 20

more concern about the mindset of the rebels
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/01/2195692_p2/libyan-city-struggles-with-history.html
jawbone no. 15 –
I think “front” would be the wrong expression, as there probably are no longer just “pro-” or “anti” government forces in Libya but a breakdown of law and order, so that people fight for their own security or their own vendettas or (wisest) flee. Do you think police is functioning in Benghazi or Misrata ? and there probably never has been “police” in mountainous areas or the desert. What happens, do you think, when you give guns to a male age group between 16 and 25 outside of any military structure and discipline? and tell them they are heros? how come Benghazi rebels have no female face? how come the west does not notice this time or mind?

Posted by: somebody | May 1 2011 23:39 utc | 21

Monolycus @20, I don’t believe it’s a matter of The Marvelous Mug not playing ball. I’ve said this before, and I’m sticking to it. The Marvelous Mug has always been useful to the West. In the former years, as an unwitting dupe/foil, in the latter years as a witting dupe/foil. I know he thinks that he was playing the West all along, but the West was playing him, and when the time came, and it has come, he was, and now is, expendable. I agree with you about the murder of the son not being a blunder, and it is definitely a message sent….to all the other expendable assets out there….witting and unwitting. The House of Saud better have a better game plan than Hussein and/or The Marvelous Mug for when that time comes…and it’s coming soon. That institution is equally expendable, it’s just a matter of when.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 2 2011 0:58 utc | 22

‘The last British monarch but one, Edward VIII, literally conspired with Adolf Hitler to run Britain as a Nazi colony. He urged the Nazis to bomb Britain more during the Second World War. So the idea that heredity throws up people who defend democracy is bizarre….’
——
Who else wants foreigners to bomb their country??? Libyas insurgents.!..who waves the flag of the former king: Idrees. The Libyan insurgents; who wants their country to be run as a colony of a war machine: the Libyan Insurgents..Its amazing how history repeats itself!
NATO is the new nazi war machine What would UK’s Mr Hague say if i told him he is a descendent of the Nazis? Nazis bombed london, now Hague gets to imitate them and bomb Tripoli.

Posted by: brian | May 2 2011 1:01 utc | 23

brian, that’s an excellent point about British Aristocracy conspiring with the Nazis……in broad daylight, practically.
An excellent movie that touches on this is The Remains of The Day starring Anthony Hopkins.
Here’s a couple of clips concerning the Nazi/British Aristocracy collaboration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=426-XOKxhk8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiVYNBQfF2Y&feature=related

Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 2 2011 1:37 utc | 24

There is no room for any celebration, let alone fireworks! It’s a very sad day for all those who have INNOCENT CHILDREN at heart! Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, his son and, alas, his three grandchildren have paid the price of their grandfather’s folly! There seems to be no respite when it comes to the ever-growing number of innocent victims of a brutal war unleashed by a madman against his very people who dared stand up for their rights! The hundreds of CHILDREN killed or left badly maimed by Gaddafi’s cluster bombs still raining on MISURATA today (videos, you-tubes and on-site journalists bear witness to all these horrendous crimes) are not “cockroaches” or “rats” and those who are capriciously ignoring this genocide must be either blinded by ulterior motives or have a hidden agenda up their sleeves!The freedom-loving Libyan people deserve all our support!

Posted by: Graphics Design | May 2 2011 1:56 utc | 25

“The freedom-loving Libyan people deserve all our support!”
hahaha – who ya workin for?
“The hundreds of CHILDREN killed or left badly maimed by Gaddafi’s cluster bombs still raining on MISURATA today”
Please DO provide some actual PROOF of this, as yet, completely unproven ALLEGATION
N.B. HRW statements do not in anyway constitute ‘Proof’

Posted by: Hu Bris | May 2 2011 2:56 utc | 26

sounds like the WH found a way to kill this story to start off the weekly news cycle

Posted by: b real | May 2 2011 2:58 utc | 27

“those who are capriciously ignoring this genocide must be either blinded by ulterior motives or have a hidden agenda up their sleeves!”
Oh Lordy, this is like when Zionists claim that all skepticism of Israeli statements that they want peace (a piece of Lebanon, a piece of Jordan, a piece of Egypt etc) is purely a result of naked unbridled “Anti-Semitism” (!!!!!!)

Posted by: Hu Bris | May 2 2011 3:00 utc | 28

‘alas, his three grandchildren have paid the price of their grandfather’s folly’
what folly is that GD? you mean this?
‘Gaddafi had also pledged to fund three ambitious African projects — the creation of an African investment bank, an African monetary fund and an African central bank. Africa felt that these Africa-centred institutions were necessary to end its dependence on the IMF and the World Bank — institutions that prescribe unrealistic and unpopular measures to qualify for loans. These conditions which include measures to privatize natural resources and allowing unlimited access to foreign companies are designed to keep Africa eternally poor or dependant on the West. Libya had pledged funds for these projects from its investments in the United States. The US$ 30 billion which the Barack Obama administration froze (or robbed) at the first signs of the orchestrated troubles in the Libyan town of Benghazi was meant to finance these three African projects which would have given Africa some economic freedom’
http://print.dailymirror.lk/opinion1/42367.html

Posted by: brian | May 2 2011 3:28 utc | 29

Libyas army6 has NOT used cluster bombs…the source for this is the dodgy HRW and …a doctor in Misarata…that is: the insurgents

Posted by: brian | May 2 2011 3:30 utc | 30

The blunder is too large so now they release the news they have been saving up for a rainy day, OBL dies during a firefight either a while ago and they saved it or they have been sitting on this knowledge of his whereabouts until they need to kill him & make a wave large enough to cover something else in this case amerika’s teoorism resulting in the deaths of libyan children.

Posted by: Debs is dead | May 2 2011 3:50 utc | 31

Ref OBL
My first thought was ‘WTF, again ?’
Second thought, what Debs said in comment 31. Convenient moment for lots of people.

Posted by: philippe | May 2 2011 4:03 utc | 32

@31, hogwash. They don’t have to cover anything up. Who, pray tell, is going to call “them” to the carpet on the blunder, if it was a blunder? The UNSC? Ha!! Do you really think the brain-dead Masses care whether, or not, it was a blunder? It doesn’t shake out. Even if it was a “blunder,” it matters not. The mission will be accomplished just as it was accomplished when Bush said it was in Iraq. Yeah, everyone had a field day with that, but Bushco had the last laugh because they did exactly what they were required to do, and that was get a permanent presence on the ground in Iraq to turn that country to #1 or #2 on my chart.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | May 2 2011 11:27 utc | 33

‘The Washington Post failed for example to mention how insurgents from Derna „liberated“ the weapons in local security bases they used to conquer the Katiba compound in Benghazi. The trick was quite simple: some of the insurgents disguised themselves as secular civilians who wanted to help the security forces defend their city against the islamic insurgents. After they were let in, they overwelmed the security forces and handcuffed them. After they interrogated these hand-cuffed security forces of the Libyan government they brought them in the backyard and murdered them. The insurgents videotaped their operation and published the videos proving their „victory“. They gave the videos of the execution of the handcuffed soldiers titles like „Gaddafi forces killed soldiers because they didn’t want to shoot peaceful protesters“ to blame their own crime on the Libyan government. But different insurgents published different videos, and after seeing them all, and so it was possible to prove by their own videos that it was insurgents who killed the handcuffed soldiers.
The insurgents of eastern Libya didn’t like to make prisoners. It was also reported that the insurgents in eastern Libya captured 50 government forces, imprisoned them in a security compound, and then set the building on fire and burned them all alive. Other Libyan government security personnal was publicly hanged in eastern and some alleged government supporters were just lynched on the spot where insurgents met them in the streets.
But the rage of the insurgents was not restricted to Libyan security forces or government loyalists. The deeply racist islamic crowds in eastern Libya hunted down unarmed black people, calling them monkeys and stabbing some black people to death on the spot in the streets. Other black people were publicly hanged, beheaded and hacked into pieces by insurgents. About 20 to 30% of the Libyan population, most of them from the southeast of Libya, have a black skin. The eastern Libyan insurgents are hateful against black people, because the Libyan government started many campaigns to fight against the discrimination of black people and many of the black Libyan people are therefore supporters of the Libyan government.
Ryan Lizza concealed these facts from his readers. Instead he spreads a stark lie to justify Obama’s war of choice against Libya:
Qaddafi had gone on the radio to warn the citizens of Benghazi. “It’s over. We are coming tonight,” he said. “We will find you in your closets.”
Muammar Gaddafi did not „warn the citizens of Benghazi.“ He didn’t to find „the citizens of Benghazi“ in their closets. In fact, he offered even an amnesty the insurgents if they laid down arms. But Muammar Gaddafi was very angry with criminals, who murdered captured Libyan government forces and who massacred unarmed black people just because they were black. He called those people who committed such heinous crimes rats and dogs and threatened to find them even in their closets. As Ryan Lizza doesn’t tell his readers how the insurgents of eastern Libya murdered captured government personnal and killed black people because they are black, he of course does not tell his readers, how he thinks Obama would react if a racists mob in the U.S. would hunt black people in the streets and lynching them on the spot. John F. Kennedy sent the National Guard to fight such racists, Obama sends the U.S. military to protect such racists against justice.’
http://nocheinparteibuch.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/ryan-lizza-spreads-anti-libyan-war-propaganda-in-the-new-yorker/

Posted by: brian | May 3 2011 2:53 utc | 34

Norway ‘earns from Libya conflict’
April 28, 2011
The Norwegian state has earned large amounts of money since the beginning of the UN-backed international military operations in Libya because of the effect of the conflict on oil prices – something which Amnesty International Norway believes could lead to “a problem for Norway’s reputation.” Meanwhile, the country’s defense minister refused to confirm whether Norwegian fighter jets were involved in Monday’s attack on Colonel Gadhafi’s headquarters, despite American sources reporting Norway’s role.
http://www.newsinenglish.no/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/20100628TJ_156-e1300792371557.jpghttp://www.newsinenglish.no/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/20100628TJ_156-e1300792371557.jpg
Defense Minister Grete Faremo, shown here a press conference last year, will not publicly confirm Norwegian involvement in Monday’s attacks on one of Colonel Gadhafi’s key strongholds. PHOTO: Forsvaret
When the missions began in Libya and oil exports from the country ceased, oil prices increased by around NOK 106 (USD 20) per barrel, and Norway has since then sold roughly 1.67 million barrels of cr udeoil, along with 1.79 million barrels of dry gas and 530,000 barrells of liquid gas. If 85 percent of the earnings from these sales come into the government budget as expected, the country has therefore earned around NOK 300 million (nearly USD 57 million) per day and total earnings of about NOK 21 billion (almost USD 4 billion), according to estimates by newspaper Aftenposten.
‘A problem with our reputation’
The sharp increase in oil prices experienced at the start of the bombing of Libya was by some estimates the largest jump in costs since the Iranian revolution in 1979. Many oil analysts in Norway, such as Thina Saltvedt of Nordea Markets who spoken to Aftenposten, believe that this shows that Norway and the world must “develop other energy sources” and “become less dependent on oil.”
Amnesty International Norway’s general secretary, John Peder Egenæs, told Aftenposten that the news presents a problem for the country in terms of its diverse international roles, and might be misinterpreted in the region where opponents of the mission have suggested that the war is about oil. “When we earn so intensely from war and conflict, we can risk having a problem with our reputation in this part of the world,” Egenæs said. “Norway sells itself deliberately as a country that works hard for peace, reconciliation and human rights.”
Egenæs was quick to add that “at the same time, it would be completely crazy if we did not engage because we earn money from higher oil prices.” He nonetheless added that “when we earn so much from war, we can only ask if we should do even more.”
Defense minister ‘reserved’
American sources confirmed that Norwegian fighter jets were involved in bombing a key headquarter of Colonel Gadhafi on Monday, something which the Norwegian defense ministry still refuses to admit publicly. Defense minister Grete Faremo told Aftenposten that “we wish to protect our pilots” and, in “a small environment”, she would “not connect individual planes or pilots to individual missions.”
Some journalists in the Norwegian media were disappointed with this stance. Per Edgar Kokkvold, the general secretary of the Norwegian Press Association, told Aftenposten that it is “not understandable that Norway should be more reserved than Denmark.” Danish authorities release information every day on which targets its forces have attacked, without connecting these missions to particular pilots or aircraft.
Faremo also answered questions on whether the mission was intended to kill Gadhafi himself, stating that Norway stayed within the limits of the UN resolution that did not include this as a legitimate goal. Analysts commenting in Aftenposten suggested that had the mission killed the Libyan leader, the oil price would have fallen USD 10.
http://mercurymail.blogspot.com/2011/05/libyan-turmoil-116-norwegians-are.html

Posted by: brian | May 5 2011 23:15 utc | 35

Evidence of crimes of NATO in Libya video with explanations in English (first explanation then link to video)
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_207193092639909&ref=ts#!/home.php?sk=group_208508835847758&view=doc&id=209553339076641

Posted by: brian | May 7 2011 14:07 utc | 36

brian, no links through facebook please

Posted by: Cloned Poster | May 7 2011 16:46 utc | 37

Gaddafi forces stage and air assault on Misrata, with results..

Posted by: Cloned Poster | May 7 2011 17:01 utc | 38

@ CP I concur on the Facebook links, I don’t have a facebook membership, but was forced to join using anonymous https proxy and phoney webmail addy when I needed to access a site which uses Facebook login as a way of protection from DDOS attacks (it appears to have been very effective for that since it makes it facebook’s huge servers whose buffers must overflow – but it strikes me as a baby with the bathwater solution) .
Anyway since I did that, anytime I start up the virtual machine I used to sign into ‘my facebook account’ an error message about Facebook certificate validation pops up.
I like to know what is happening re validation certificates on the VMs I use for ‘little chores’ so I run an add on that keeps a log of all transactions with certificate authorities, it raises an error message for any certificate change/update/issue request so I can decide if that is a good idea or not.
Mostly (like 99.99999% of the time) nothing is up, but what concerned me about this message was that ever since I used facebook to log on to that site, the vm tries to connect to Facebook whenever it starts. I don’t trust em especially since spruikers on amerikan news/comedy shows has been running skits about crazies saying “Facebook is a CIA front” Just as aborigines were reputed to defeat trackers by hiding evidence of a small cooking fire under the ashes of a larger seemingly uncontrolled bushfire, Facebook makes a pretend ‘conspiracy theory’ about something that isn’t a theory – it is 100% proven & on the money.
There is considerable evidence that Facebook got a lot of its start up capital from US intelligence.
That link brings me to my bugbear. I have always believed that intelligence agencies are so well resourced and lacking in scruple that they keep a track of everything they want to. The whole VM CA watch thing is about trying to work out their methods, not in the vain hope of actually being unobserved, cause I don’t do or write anything which really requires monitoring.
So I don’t post facebook links because it exposes others who are unaware of facebooks connections, but there is one site whose links I believe ought never to be posted and that is england’s guardian newspaper who almost singlehandedly caused wikileaks all their problems.
They may pretend to be vaguely leftie, but they aren’t. They rose to becoming one of the highest news page view sites on the web during the nineties & noughties by being less mainstream but only when it didn’t really matter. We (being the millions of posters with humanist tendencies) all linked to their articles, google used that to move the Guardian ‘up the ladder’ on searches and increased their circulation. They don’t deserve it and if we are going to ask peeps not to use facebook links we should do the same with guardian links.
Someone used tiny url to link to the guardian the other day. Was that you denk? If it wasn’t sorry and thanks to whoever it was.
Altho I don’t know what effect using a tinyurl instead of the full one has on the google algorithm, do you know b?
Whatever it is it is good to be searching around for ways to avoid aiding the guardian’s hypocrisy. can’t help but notice that they have shut down debate on most of their articles, and that became very pronounced after their scummy perfidious go at Julian Asssange. No doubt too many posters were pointing out the guardian’s rank behaviour.

Posted by: Debs is dead | May 9 2011 4:32 utc | 39

Debs – Google and Bing de-construct tiny url links and take them into account for page rank and more. On the other hand, all links posted in the comments on MOA have automatically ‘rel=nofollow’ appended. That tells the search engines: don’t add much weight to those links, in terms of SEO (the idea behind is rel=nofollow is fight against spam, real one. Years ago, many of the blogging systems where often flooded with real spam in the comments in the hope of improving page rank. Better filtering and moderation has taken care of part of that, though)
And yeah, the Guardian; it used to be a good fishwrap, back when I was living in London (15+ years ago or something), and their early online life was pretty good as well. The last 2, 3 years it has gone downwards. Their obsession with becoming a big player in the US media landscape is showing through, big time.
PS – curious about your FB trick… And yes I’ve known for a while how much of spook operation it is. Twitter is another of those ops I suspect. Helena Coban over at Justworldviews describes another of those ops, under construction still. Arstechnica.com has more about it, uncovered in the context of their articles about anonymous.

Posted by: Philippe | May 9 2011 6:52 utc | 40

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