U.S. terror strikes Libya, escalates war on Nicaragua
1986 1986-05Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 1
The U.S. government is engaged in a carefully orchestrated campaign to prepare the American public for war.
Using lies and provocations to justify its actions, the Reagan administration—-with the full support of the Democratic Party-has twice bombed Libya. Now President Reagan, speaking to the Heritage Foundation on April 22, has referred to Nicaragua as a "Libya on our doorstep." Such language is meant to pave the way for a direct U.S. military strike against Nicaragua.
In mid-January, Newsweek magazine disclosed a confidential government white paper on Libya that revealed the Reagan administration's intent to "goad" Libyan .Editorial leader Muammar Qaddafi into a situation that would "give the administration exactly the opportunity it needs to stage a military attack."
In the last week of March, shortly after the House of Representatives vote on military and economic aid to the Nicar -aguan contras, the U.S. government staged a military provocation that had been in the planning for three months. By the time the two-day "war games" were over, the U.S. Navy claimed it had sunk three Libyan patrol boats and destroyed a Libyan missile base.
The Reagan administration asserted that it was simply exercising its legal right to move through international waters, defying Libya's claim to a 200-mile protected area off the Gulf of Sidra.
However, Alfred Rubin, professor of international law at Tufts University, told the Boston Globe (March 25, 1986) that by sending aircraft into the Gulf of Sidra, the United States was, in fact, violating inter -national law and thus provoking the Libyan government.
"The United States itself claims 200 miles of airspace bordering on its territory as an 'Air Defense Identification Zone,' and claims the right to exercise self-defense against any enemy aircraft entering that zone," Rubin said. "Thus Libya claimed the same legal rights, in the air, as the United States would have done under reversed circumstances. The United States took this as a sanction to attack Libyan shipping."
Moreover, U.S. planes clearly violated avno IvI Socialist Action/Joe Ryan Libyan soil before being fired upon, as radar observations by a British engineer in Libya confirmed, according to the London Sunday Times.
Administration officials initially (continued on page 2) march draw
----- pull-quotes -----
JOBS BOMBS