Nato's 8-month bombing campaign in Libya was completely based on lies.

From the start, it was a violent uprising in which the rebels, including Al-Qaida fighters (the arch-enemy of the Libyan government), stormed police stations and army barracks in different cities in Libya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtGYTb41TZg&feature=player_embedded

In just a few days, they had acquired a large number of different weapons, including heavy weaponry like tanks, and in a week they probably had more weapons than Libya's neighbouring countries. The rebellion was prepared and supported by the French secret service from November 2010 onwards -

http://www.voltairenet.org/French-plans-to-topple-Gaddafi-on

- while France and Britain had "wargamed" the coming Libyan war during the preparations for their Southern Mistral 2011 exercise, the scenario of the exercise being precisely that of the coming aerial bombing campaign:

http://www.southern-mistral.cdaoa.fr/GB/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=103

I received support for this from a senior researcher in the Finnish Defense Forces who told me via email that the idea that the Libyan war was "wargamed" in advance was "not only a realistic but the default assumption".

This French documentary, in turn, contains an interview of the individual who presented the UN with the lies that were used as the legitimation for Nato's bombing campaign. In an interview last summer he finally acknowledges, when pressed with demands for proof, that there was "no evidence" for what he had blamed Libyan government of.

http://www.laguerrehumanitaire.fr/english

Libya's government was said to be slaughtering civilians, whereas in reality it was fighting an armed rebellion supported by Western ground troops. The same thing is now occurring in Syria.

Instead of even sending a fact-finding mission to Libya to verify the rebels' claims - as welcomed by the Libyan government - the Nato was quickly given a mandate to "protect the civilians" under the no-fly zone.

The tragedy of the el-Hamedi family is just one example of Nato "protecting the civilians":
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/80249315

Before the war, Libya was placed at # 53 in the UN Human Development Index, in the category "High Human Development", well above world average:

http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/LBY.html

It had the highest life expectancy and lowest child mortality rate in all Africa according to UN statistics, and the incarceration rate was many times lower than that of the USA. Medical care, education and electricity were free, and there was a substantial housing benefit for the newly married, among other things. Libya's welfare state surpassed that of even Finland in some respects.

Now the country is in the hands of Al-Qaida, and murder and torture are widespread, as the recent Amnesty report shows:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/libya-deaths-detainees-amid-widespread-torture-2012-01-26

Doctors Without Borders stopped operating in Benghazi, as the same patients kept coming back after new torture sessions:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/26/doctors-without-borders-halts-work-in-libyan-city-of-misrata-over-torture-concerns/

And the real genocide was happening during the war and continues to happen under the rebel regime, with the massacres of sub-Saharan immigrant workers as "Gaddafi mercenaries" as per Western war propaganda. And the city of Tawergha was ethnically cleansed of black residents. But of course, old colonial powers like France couldn't care less as long as their interests are secured.

What the West did to Libya is unforgivable. They allowed monsters to take the place of a government who just before the contrived war (in which tens of thousands died) had received praise in a UN Human Rights Council report for its continued progress in improving the human rights situation.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16session/A-HRC-16-15.pdf

The fact that this managed to be done without much protest or questioning by the mainstream media shows that "they" can still do pretty much what they want.

Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iran are on the list of countries that the US decided to invade years ago, as testified to by General Wesley Clark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7NsXFnzJGw&feature=g-vrec&context=G25fdfebRVAAAAAAAAAA

What we are seeing in Syria is simply a repeat of the same regime-change script that was played in Libya. Of course, destabilizing Syria also helps weaken Iran, with which the US wanted to "finish off" the list, as Clark said.

I am deeply ashamed of being a Westerner in these times.