French Election

[elfismiles]

SARKO SNARED French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy arrested over ‘receiving £42m in illegal campaign funds from dead Libyan dictator Gaddafi’

The investigation is said to be related to funding from Libya for his 2007 election campaign
By Jay Akbar and Peter Allen
20th March 2018, 7:57 am
Updated: 20th March 2018, 3:08 pm

FORMER French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been arrested over accusations he received £42million in illegal campaign funding from dead Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

The 63-year-old was arrested by judicial police in Paris and taken to their headquarters in the suburb on Nanterre, local media reported.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5852903/f ... urces-say/

[Rory]

This Sarko reveal is amazing, and very much a shot across the bows of everyone who'd think of financing and trusting a NATO politician. They'll take your money and bayonet you to death without the slightest bit of conscience.

If Iraq's betrayal by the US wasn't warning enough, there's plenty here to hammer that message home.

[American Dream]

To say nothing of trusting what is justifiably termed "the anti-Imperialism of Fools"! I wouldn't trust Gaddafi very much at all, either.

This Sarko reveal is amazing, and very much a shot across the bows of everyone who'd think of financing and trusting a NATO politician. They'll take your money and bayonet you to death without the slightest bit of conscience.

If Iraq's betrayal by the US wasn't warning enough, there's plenty here to hammer that message home.

[JackRiddler]

Duh, AD! What's up, you required to remind everyone water's wet every time certain trigger words like Gaddafi are mentioned? Whatever he was, it's irrelevant. The relevant fact here is that it is highly dubious that the Western intervention prevented a greater massacre than what actually happened, as was advertised in the lying Western propaganda in favor of launching the illegal war of aggression on Libya. Even Obama confessed to the action as his greatest regret!

What actually happened as a result was mass death and the complete destruction and informal break-up of the most highly developed nation-state on the African continent, so that now it is home to the worst of the Islamist jihadis and a trade in black slaves, and no longer poses the threat of leading a renewed African Union, leaving the dollar system, building infrastructure instead of jihadi indoctrination centers, or contributing to a new Pan-Africanism. Also, this new "liberated" Libya is actually taking money to hold refugees in prison camps on behalf of the EU.

There are no mitigating circumstances for Sarko, Berlusconi, Cameron, Clinton, Obama, Powers and the other architects of this crime against humanity. Since we are not Gaddafi-era Libyans, it is on us to never forget and to always fight a repetition of the crimes committed by OUR COUNTRIES, the ones where we live. That is the anti-imperialism of realists committed to real change, rather than empty slogans about how everyone's evil, which ain't news to anyone.

Otherwise you see where we land: for example, the jihadi-run entity still known (falsely) as the "Free Syrian Army," the so-called "rebels," just served as the infantry in the offensive, led and backed by Turkey, to conquer Afrin from the only actual rebels and sort-of good guys among the armed forces on the ground in Syria, the Kurdish-led militias who had previously defeated ISIS. This is going to mean more ethnic cleansing and mass death. Both of these sides armed by the West! All of them at some point "allies" of the West!

And the whole time the Western media was running non-stop interference for this crime, which WE could actually affect, by exclusively covering the concurrent battle in Eastern Ghouta. And now you will be triggered into telling me Assad's a really bad guy and checking whether I've understood this. You're going to educate me, eh? I pay taxes here, for the U.S. military and thus NATO. If I can do anything useful, I am responsible first of all for opposing or preventing if I can the crimes of the government here.

Written 15 years to the day since the launching of the US-UK war of aggression on the nation of Iraq.

.

[American Dream]

I was talking to Rory about the kind of "anti-Imperialism" which is part of their essential identity here and pointing out that when Sarkozy and Gadaffi are doing underhanded deals the best conclusion is not simply Sarko bad or NATO bad, though of course they are. Invisiblizing how fucked up a murderous strongman is, is never gonna get it, be it Gadaffi, Duterte or Saddam. That shit is a gross distortion of class struggle as none of these killers represent working class liberation, rather just advocating for another set of oppressors more than anything.

I don't think you have to side unconditionally with one set of bosses or the other- neither crew will stop being exploitive and oppressive bosses any time soon. I have always been against the Imperialism of the U.S. and its allies, for as long as I could think and had access to basic information. I supported the enemies of Uncle Sam and his posse when I thought they deserved it. I never supported the flip that Worker's World and its ilk insinuated into mass protest: not Gadaffi nor Saddam, neither Kim Jong-il nor Putin, Assad, or any of their ilk. Critical support for those that deserve it.

I rejected it when Bush said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." and I reject simply reversing that logic. In the case of ideologies that revere the "heroic" killers and torturers mentioned above, I have little enthusiasm nor energy. That may not be you but I think it is Rory.

[Elvis]

Leaders summarily characterized as "killers" are usually the object of intense U.S. propaganda that is so frequently shown to be fraudulent. Anyone like Gaddafi who presses for an African economic unity that isn't based on the U.S. dollar is going to get the treatment, and many Americans fall for it.

The next thing you know, thousands more are dead and another country is destroyed. Coincidentally, all this occurs right on the widely documented neocon/neoliberal schedule for re-ordering the Middle East and other regions. As a benefit, progress toward an economically strong, independent Africa is once again thwarted.


I'm not up on the details, but £42m is good money and I wonder if it was a loan, and Sarkozy saw a way out of the obligation?

[American Dream]

I'm actually most interested in Gadaffi's Libya in a deep politics sense: the ways that the power structure might actually have been intertwined with the U.S./NATO et al covertly- and/or by advocating a misguided political praxis that was not intelligently leftist but perhaps more like some weird variant of Third Positionism. For the record, I do not think the question is either/or: I think a whole bunch of fucked up shit was going on there.

Among the specific areas that concern me:

"Rogue" spooks Wilson & Terpil were training guerrillas in Libya, some of them militants who were to be deployed for terrorist/urban guerrilla operations in Europe. Green Berets "on leave" were frequently brought over and huge shipments of C-4 and other armaments were brought over. Certainly Wilson/Terpil were super fucked-up, what with EATSCO, guns for drugs operations, targeted assassinations, Nugan Hand, Carlos the Jackal, and what not. So what was up with that channel of support, which could hardly have been invisible to the spymasters? Were they betraying the militants and revolutionaries who were deployed to Europe, as some claim? No matter what, a murky and troubling situation.

Gadaffi took responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and sacrificed a citizen with a terminal illness, as I recall. Why?

Smuggling drugs/weapons/migrants through the desert and providing aid to ethno-nationalist militias: profitable and/or a power play?

How much of a principled socialist was he really? Reads more like a state capitalist strongman to me.

Supporting the PFLP-GC and the Abu Nidal Organization? The odds are good these groups were, to a significant degree, trojan horses. Then there's the Red Brigades, and the Red Army Faction, the Japanese Red Army and other such bad actors.

Building a regime on Nationalism, Authoritarianism, Homophobia, etc.- not what I call good politics at all, though for a Putin type it might be.

Allying with Hafez al-Assad and Idi Amin? Not good.


In no way am I with the gusanos or reactionaries but all these things take the shine off of Gadaffi's Libya. I reject the anti-Imperialism of Fools.

[Elvis]

You make some good points, though my reading of the Lockerbie affair is that Gaddafi wasn't responsible, but was put into a very difficult position and took the least destructive way out. Interesting to note, that once Gaddafi was pressured into taking responsibility for the bombing—and agreed to comply with U.S. demands—he was welcomed into the 'family of nations' etc. (albeit 'on probation' of sorts). That seems kind of weird, to grant political legitamacy to someone who just confessed to a terrorist bombing; it suggests that the matter was not really about the bombing, but rather, more likely about extorting Gaddafi to conform to the aims of U.S. hegemony.

It's evident to me that Gaddafi was sentenced to death, and Libya destroyed, when his proposals for a regional currency started gaining traction. Of course, to assess the facts this way doesn't mean I am necessarily any kind of fan of Gaddafi's (or Putin's, since you brought him into it...LOL).

[Elvis]

Sarkozy bad. I'm loving it!

[MacCruiskeen]

I was talking to Rory about the kind of "anti-Imperialism" which is part of their essential identity here and pointing out that when Sarkozy and Gadaffi are doing underhanded deals the best conclusion is not simply Sarko bad or NATO bad, though of course they are. Invisiblizing how fucked up a murderous strongman is, is never gonna get it, be it Gadaffi, Duterte or Saddam. That shit is a gross distortion of class struggle as none of these killers represent working class liberation,

And you do? Yes, incredibly,you would have us believe that you do. So what do your unceasing efforts towards "working class liberation" (sic) actually look like? Those efforts begin and end with the regurgitation of warmongering bullshit from the corporate centre and the "anarchist" fringe of your world-imperialist Homeland. Your "anti-imperialism" consists -- dependably, invariably, without exception -- in a sustained war of attrition against America`s ennemi du jour, whether that enemy be Evil Gaddafi, Evil Assad, or Evil Putin. When Venezuela goes down under US pressure, you'll be reminding this board how that oil-rich nation failed to meet your impeccably high moral standards. When the US nukes North Korea, you will be tut-tutting, in your comfortable Homeland, about the faults on both sides. When Iran is "liberated" as Iraq was, and by the same empire (yours), you will watch from the sidelines, from the safe distance of your nook in the Homeland, reminding us that Iran was very far from perfect.

The War on Terror? You`re lovin` ìt, pal, every single moment of it -- just like all the Daily Beast hacks, WaPo prostitutes, and Guardian media drones you`ve been citing here so tirelessly, and so approvingly, for as long as you could get away with it.

You have never yet seen a US/NATO aggression you were not -- de facto -- working wholeheartedly to support with your tireless propaganda.

"American Dream" indeed. As above, so below. An empire of sanctimonious lies and murderous moralising. An ongoing nightmare for the planet and the board.

[MacCruiskeen]

And yes, fuck it. Sarko bad. NATO bad.

[MacCruiskeen]

From October 2012: A Daily Mail article quoting unnamed "well-placed sources" in post-Gaddaffi Libya who were interviewed by journalists from Corriere della Sera, so caveat lector, as ever:

Gaddafi was killed by French secret serviceman on orders of Nicolas Sarkozy, sources claim
By Peter Allen for MailOnline
PUBLISHED: 12:43 GMT, 30 September 2012 | UPDATED: 07:56 GMT, 1 October 2012


The motive, according to well-placed sources in the North African country, was to stop Gaddafi being interrogated about his highly suspicious links with Sarkozy, who was President of France at the time.

[...]

Diplomatic sources in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, meanwhile suggested to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra that a foreign assassin was likely to have been French.

The paper writes: 'Since the beginning of NATO support for the revolution, strongly backed by the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, Gaddafi openly threatened to reveal details of his relationship with the former president of France, including the millions of dollars paid to finance his candidacy at the 2007 elections.'

One Tripoli source said: 'Sarkozy had every reason to try to silence the Colonel and as quickly as possible.'

The view is supported by information gathered by investigaters in Benghazi, Libya's second city and the place where the 'Arab Spring' revolution against Gaddafi started in early 2011.

[...]

Sarkozy, who lost the presidential election in May, has continually denied receiving money from Gaddafi.
Today he was unavailable for comment, but is facing a number of enquiries into alleged financial irregularities.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z5AN6pF3to

So the allegations have already been around for more than five years now. A long and careful investigation must have preceded Sarkozy`s very recent arrest.

[American Dream]

Oakland Socialist is a generally good resource on Confusionism- and the way beyond it:

East Ghouta: Support US Intervention?

by Roger Silverman


Here are photos of East Ghouta today and Gaza in 2014 after
Israel got done bombing there. Can you tell which is which?
Yet many “socialists” seem to consider the mass slaughter
in E. Ghouta acceptable.

The widespread confusion about the respective motives and affiliations of the key players in the Syrian conflict, from the Americans to the Russians to the Turks and the Kurds, is not surprising. Part of the explanation is an entirely misplaced reflex reaction by sections of the left of defence of the Russian gangster regime against US imperialism, an indefensible nostalgic overhang from the Cold War days; but it is also due to the confused and constantly shifting situation itself.

Just as US imperialism at one time supported Saddam Hussein, using him as a surrogate in his war with Iran, and later turned against him and waged full-scale war to destroy his regime; just as it bombed Gaddafi in the 1980s, targeting him personally and branding him the fount of all subversion, then made him its accomplice in the practice of extraordinary rendition, and finally intervened militarily to overthrow him; so too US imperialism has switched eclectically from one zig-zag to another in relation to the Assad regime. Along with Israel, it opposed Assad as an ally of Iran and the godfather of Hezbollah; then it gratefully used his services (along with Gaddafi’s) as a favourite torture rendition agent; then, as in Libya, it exploited the revolt against him; now it is giving him tacit support in the current civil war, largely through its support of the Kurds. And yet in 2012 it was openly preparing to intervene militarily against Assad, and was prevailed upon to draw back only when the British parliament voted against collaborating with it. Now, however, while fearing the enhanced influence of Russia and Iran under Assad’s regime, there is no doubt that the USA is once again tactically supporting him as the best defence against revolution, as well as against the Islamic State.

“Regime Change”?
It is a lazy reflex default position on the left to assume that US imperialism’s prime objective is the removal of Assad, and that all reports of atrocities in the Syrian civil war can be discounted as black propaganda, like Saddam’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction”. Perhaps also some on the left have a vague memory of the sharp turn of Assad senior in the 1970s to state ownership of the entire economy, and are unaware of the current regime’s switch to wholesale privatisation. Finally, the horrific antics of the fascist Islamic State – so much more luridly publicised than the monstrous, virtually genocidal acts of Assad’s bombing campaigns – only helped blur scrutiny of the true nature of the Syrian government.

The question is now raised of whether or not to call for military aid to the Syrian resistance from capitalist governments. This is especially being pressed due to the slaughter being carried out by the forces of Assad and Putin in E. Ghouta.

In one form or another, this is a question that arises repeatedly in all but those rare and brief periods when the proletariat is conscious enough and organised enough to intervene directly on the historical stage.

Of course, it is all too easy to issue pious “Marxist” platitudes from afar while workers are facing extermination. Nevertheless, it does no harm to start by restating first principles. Imperialism, after all, is the problem, not the solution. There have been countless cases of military interventions from outside which may initially have appeared to offer immediate relief to mass suffering, but which actually solved nothing. It has been shown again and again that calls for intervention in local or regional conflicts by world imperialism (whether under the flag of the United Nations or otherwise) have been misplaced. There are several parallels within living memory of military interventions from outside which initially appeared to provide immediate relief to mass suffering, but which solved nothing and often led to more intractable forms of oppression.

Continues: https://oaklandsocialist.com/2018/03/20 ... ervention/

[MacCruiskeen]

You are completely fucking shameless. Don`t lecture me or this Discussion Board about "Confusionism" while slithering away from any actual discussion yet again -- and spare us all even more of this irrelevant tomfoolery about your favourite current US-imperialist adventure (Syria) from your favourite pseudleft comic book, "Oakland Socialist" (sic).

This is a thread about French politics, currently discussing Sarkozy. It is not yet another garbage heap for you to take a random dump in.