Video: Libya War - What They Don't Want You to Know - The Corbett Report

We are taught all our lives that our modern political systems are "by and for the people." In order to justify taking us to war, then, our misleaders have to convince us that war is not a racket, as General Smedley Butler revealed, and is not for the benefit of the industrialists who sell the munitions or the politicians in their back pocket or the financiers that own them both, but in the interest of the average man or woman. In other words, they lie through their teeth.

Find out more about the lies that led us to Libya in 2011, and the cover up of what is taking place there today in this week's edition of The Eyeopener report.

INTERVIEW: Horace Campbell talks Why Was Gaddafi Overthrown? on The Real News

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Horace Campbell: Gaddafi wanted to strengthen Pan-Africanism and had enough resources to challenge US hegemony in the region.

The way it starts: Libya and the disaster of humanitarian intervention

As the third anniversary of the attack on Libya approaches, Chris Nineham draws the lessons from Horace Campbell's Global Nato and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya

From mid-March to October 2011, Libya was rarely out of the headlines as Western air forces averaged 150 air strikes per day on the hapless population. The brutal killing of Gaddafi – co-ordinated, Campbell says here, by US, British and French special forces and drones – was followed by a brief media celebration. Since then, with the exception of puzzled reports about the killing of the US ambassador in Benghazi in September 2012, and scattered references to chaos and militia rule, there has been virtual radio silence. The traumatic impact of this pummelling was so obvious on the ground, the western media simply slunk away.

The attack on Libya was officially the most thoroughly humanitarian of wars. ‘Conflict prevention expert’ Gareth Evans was joining a chorus of western opinion when he insisted in March 2011 that the operation ‘was not about bombing for democracy or Muammar Gaddafi’s head. Legally, morally, politically, and militarily it has only one justification: protecting the country’s people’ (p.134).

Horace Campbell’s account of the war effectively demolishes the notion that the intervention had even traces of humanitarianism about it. Campbell has some blind spots; he plays down Gaddafi’s totalitarian record and plays up Obama’s instincts for peace. Sometimes his argument is a little hard to follow. Nevertheless, this a very important story, because, as the third anniversary of the attack on Libya approaches, calls for other, similar humanitarian interventions keep getting louder. While the wider population in Britain and elsewhere is becoming more and more hostile to foreign wars, the case for intervention seems to be gaining ground in liberal and left circles.

Video: What does Gaddafi's death mean for Libya? - CaspianReport

The death of the former Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, marks the next phase for the National Transitional Council of Libya, forming a transitional government. However this will be a very hard to accomplish because Libya is a country with various factions. To make things worse, these factions are now armed to the teeth and they all want a significant stake in the new government. Its very difficult to reach a peaceful agreement when the stakes are so high and when all factions are heavily armed.

The Transitional Council is unlikely to simply take control where Gaddafi left off. The next phase for the National Transitional Council of Libya is to make serious compromises and to balance all factions in the new government or face a new civil war among the factions.

Video: Libya - Gaddafi's position in Africa - CaspianReport

In the last couple years Gaddafi used the African continent to raise his international PR campaign. He has built up a network with other countries in Africa. Most of these relations are based on commercial or political interests and are limited to the Sahel region. So although Libya has a certain degree of influence on some African countries. It's not a dominant influence but still the absence of Libyan involvement could have some consequences.

After Afghan and Libyan wars, NATO uses Iceland to further integrate Sweden and Finland

A hearing-impaired resident of the Barmahlíð nursing home at Reykhólar, the West Fjords, was awoken by the sounds of jets taking part in the NATO training exercises over Iceland. The sound was so loud, visir.is reports, that he thought that his hearing had returned.

Six fighter jets were reportedly taking part in the exercises over the area.

Local residents say that they fear that the noise may also be disturbing birds in the area.

Fighter jets from NATO and partner countries began to conduct air defense-related flying activities over Iceland on February 3 in the first event of its kind to be held on the island.

Participants from NATO members Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States, and partner countries Finland and Sweden are attending the Iceland Air Meet 2014 (IAM2014) supported by NATO AWACS (Airborne Warning & Control System).

“This is a further step forward in NATO’s excellent cooperation with Finland and Sweden: the first time that we have flown together over Iceland,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a press statement.

Video: Africa's Missing Fortunes - Press TV Africa Today

South African officials are investigating claims that at least one billion dollars of Libyan assets are hidden in South African accounts, but this is a fraction of what has disappeared since the death of Gaddafi.

Only recently Swiss banks caved into American demands for transparency and revealed the names of secret bank account holders.

Now African activists are expected to step up their demands for more transparency; not just from Swiss banks but from banks based in London, Germany and indeed the US, which could be holding billions of dollars worth of African wealth that stays there when these dictators finally meet their maker.

This money could do so much if it were liberated and used to help the people in some of the poorest countries in the world.