Why Inconsistencies,Contradictions & Irrelevancies in Our News Gives Rise to Conspiracy Theories!

American Democrats have handed over “tax cuts”, “spending cuts”...and probably “tapering off or slip sliding woman’s rights” over to the “old boys of the Republican party”. It is not just octogenarians of the Middle East who have enjoyed too much power and authority without accountability and responsibility. At least young people and women in the Middle East are coming out in droves to protest. Our octogenarian conservative white boys are actually accumulating power and authority.

Democrats gave away tax cuts to the very rich (2% of the population) that confused, disappointed and shocked most people. Now they have cut an extra billion (that is one with nine zeros) to an already “over stretched” budget reduction. This is like a sexist male survivalist telling his wife, “One group of friends tell me I am too liberal and indulge you too much. Another group of friends think that I am too conservative and physically abuse you too much. So I am going to please all of them, and henceforth will start verbally abusing you in public while holding your hand in private!”

Some male improvement this!

We can apply this analogy to the current American budget. It beats up on the poor, the middle class and hard working immigrants, while the Congress wants praise for compromise and competent concessions.

Some Democratic achievement this!

In America Conservatives do not apologize for physically or economically beating up on those who are at the bottom...while the Democrats apologize for their very existence! Its a wonder they have not committed Hari-kiri for what is going on in Japan.

American Republicans, it appears, like rubbing their feet on people they consider “doormats”, while Liberals and Progressives, a dwindling group among Democrats, have a new motto: “Pauper Progressives, Lackey Liberals and Doormat Democrats  – Kindly Rub Your Feet Hard On Us Anytime!"

No wonder these Democrats are losing respect fast! Blaming President Obama is easy and not fair. What are, and were, the old guards among the Democrats doing...other than accumulating power, authority and networking? And where are the hard ax liberal feminists who can kick without apologizing or asking?

The few we had in office, or thought we had, appear too congenial, too compliant to the status quo, too converted by elite needs, too contaminated by conservative politics, too controlled by beltway bucks and too curtailed by traditionalists.

I know Ms Hillary Clinton has disappointed many liberals and progressives. The liberal press now blames Ms Clinton, Ms Rice and Ms Powers – ladies with the lethal weapon of persuasive political talk with their Prince at the top - for the “humanitarian service through military bombing” in Libya.

Have our battle ax women now become battle-women with a bugle for all the wrong causes using all the wrong strategies? If so, where is the Democratic Dojo-kick for progressive policies going to come from? Next year, next time...next century?

With all these disappointments and disgruntlement new kinds of conspiracy theories are emerging about many current events. Here are some:

We now have YouTube videos (yes YouTube!) on how actions by some odd organization called HAARP (I never heard of it until now) could have been responsible for earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan - because the Japanese, their representatives and their government refused to renew the American military-base contract.

Wikipedia tells me that HAARP is an actual authentic organization, called High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project, that has been around since 1990, for which the Department of Defense wanted to increase spending from $ 5 million to $ 75 million. Was this not-so-well known project, Journalist Sharon Weinberger called the “Moby Dick” for “conspiracy theorists" (including Jesse Ventura), ever under budget-cut scrutiny - especially by the hack-cost-happy Conservatives?

Can you blame young, confused or conflicted people for entertaining conspiracy theories? Especially when, in a middle of a terrible economy, we have a military action, not sanctioned by the Congress, against a dictator who actually opened up his country to American and European business interests and investments few years ago. Also, when more ruthless dictators around the world are being ignored – some actually being well financed. (Read Jeremy Scahill's “The Dangerous US Game in Yemen” in The Nation, March 30, 2011). How much did Mubarak, Saleh, Musharraf..., all military dictators, receive from the US while Saddam was being overthrown - and now Gaddafi?

Why did Libya, another oil country, become suddenly a humanitarian crisis (with many abstentions for the no-fly zone resolution in the UN), just within a few days (not even weeks) after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor problem unfolded (and still continues)?

One conspiracy theory purports, “France wanted a digression from the Daiichi nuclear reactor catastrophe - so its nuclear energy export policy will not get affected by the radioactive fiasco”.

(The fact that the Académie des Sciences and the Académie Nationale de Médecine - the French Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine - are big supporters of studies that attempt to prove the beneficial effects of low-level radiation known as hormesis, which the American Air Force and Nuclear Energy lobby groups also borrow and endorse, only adds to these conspiracy speculations. {Calabrese, Edward J. {2004-06-01}. "Hormesis: from marginalization to mainstream: A case for hormesis as the default dose-response model in risk assessment". Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology 197 [2]: 125–136. & Duport, P. [2003-09-11]. "A database of cancer induction by low-dose radiation in mammals: overview and initial observations". International Journal of Low Radiation. International Journal of Low Radiation 1 [11]: 120–131}.)

(Also for the record, the notion of radiation hormesis has been rejected by the National Research Council, part of the American National Academy of Sciences, after a 16 year long study on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. Richard R. Monson, Associate Dean for Professional Education and Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, also admits that the development of solid cancers in organs actually rise proportionally with exposure).

Another conspiracy theory assumes, “England wants to secure its oil fields in Libya with the help of the military - so any rebellion or a civil war would not affect its business operations.” The fact that BP (not Beyond Petroleum) has been trying very hard to make up for its losses with the Gulf oil spill in the United States only makes such assumptions plausible.

A third conspiracy theory suggests, “America wanted a more stable supply of oil - and conveniently found another easy unpopular isolated dictator, like Saddam Hussein a decade ago, to overthrow and take over his oil".

The fourth conspiracy theory speculates, "America is moving from a pan-Arab military control – mostly in the Middle East – to a pan-African imperial control  connected to AFRICOM".

The fifth conspiracy theory states that, "America had a plan to go into Libya more than ten years ago for several economic and geo-political reasons - and found an opportune moment to do so when everyone was focused on the triple disasters in Japan”.

The sixth conspiracy theory...you might have guessed by now!

Why are there so many conspiracy theories...some quite ridiculous?

Because our media no longer informs accurately, reports relevantly, investigates courageously, analysis intelligently, evaluates independently and opines reliably. Hence, I suggest reading up on all these conspiracy theories - as one or two might come out to be true in a few years.

But for some relevant intelligent insights and discussions, with experts and smart journalists, on earthquakes, tsunamis, missile testing, fracting, ionospheric research, nuclear energy, nuclear catastrophes, radioactivity, Libya, oil industries, North Africa, imperialism, corporate expansion, AFRICOM, etc. go to California, Canada, England, Germany, Taiwan, India, China, Russia, Australia, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile...even Pakistan (where their journalists have been asking some penetrating questions of their Parliamentarians, business leaders and military personnel).

And what do we have in the United States? We've got a Congressman, Louie Gohmert (a Republican from Texas), wasting professional time and precious resources trying to create a new law that would stop pregnant women tourists from having babies here and later returning to their home countries! Would he prefer that they stay - using up his tax dollars? Would he prefer that they not come at all - reducing tourist revenue? Or better still, would he prefer that they not seek any medical help for their delivery - and have babies in the shed like his prophet's mother?

If some global occurrences feel like sci-fi horror, some American domestic occurrences feel like a cuckoo's nest.

Oh, how they argue, convince and promote...

Protecting labor that work for our welfare...and sometimes put their lives on the line for us!

We must look with amazement and utter awe at the workers who continue to operate in radioactively dangerous environments in Japan to bring the unstable nuclear reactors under control, built by GE, Toshiba & Hitachi, while managers, administrators and corporate kings look for new ways to cover their backs and distort information (to avoid responsibility). Let us remember what varied workers do, go through, risk and die for – to do their job, to protect the innocent and save others around the world!

These brave men and women, who are exploited themselves in many ways, are the face of “labor”!

Today American Liberals, Progressives, labor rights' activists, Socialists and Marxists remember, with pain and horror, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, one of the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history, that killed more than 146 workers on March 25, 1911. Many of the workers, mostly young immigrant women, leaped to their death when they tried to escape after they found the emergency exits locked. (Watch Democracy Now's excellent coverage, March 25, 2011, of this fire and the labor law changes that followed).

How many fires in factories and warehouses have we heard about around the world where workers were thrust into small rooms, with little or no ventilation, no bathrooms, no windows, no emergency exits...not even a bucket of water or sand to put out a spark? Plenty!

Many workers, including children, work in appalling and dangerous conditions around the world - even today. They toil for hours under poor lighting, poor air circulation, with poorly constructed desks and chairs, using obsolete or outdated technology that is hard and painful to operate and without proper safety gears or updated protections. Many workers end up with bad eyes, bad lungs, bad posture, spinal problems, serious or severe disabilities, cancer and other chronic health problems because of the job they do. Many actually die at work, and because of work.

If we count the mental health problems due to bullying, brutish, dehumanizing, demanding, demeaning, dismissive, cruel, crude, humiliating, hurtful, insensitive, isolating and stressful work environments, the list of job related problems would increase a thousand fold - even for white collar workers.

A faculty, who underwent treatment for depression, once said to me cynically, "I guess we cannot change the work environment that wants more and more from us: more research, more publications, more teaching, more student load to carry, more administrative work, more community work, more grant writing, more regulations to follow, more niceness...and all under less pay, less sleep, less collegiality, less peer support, less recognition...with more sexism, racism, ethnocentrism....It never stops. I guess the system will never change...so we take tablets to cope better or change ourselves!"

If this is what teachers, faculty and white collar workers have to go through, imagine our garbage collectors, road workers, house cleaners, etc.?

In countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan lower status of workers, and their ill treatment, is sustained by centuries of feudalism, classicism, casteism, sexism and colonialism. Many white collar workers in these countries, including in computer industries, have bought into corporate culture and psychology for their own “middle class” lifestyles. Many have colluded with the upper classes and foreign companies that treat their land, resources and labor as exploitable disposable human waste.

In countries like the United States, where reports on disasters and deaths that occur in other countries are treated mostly as “media voyeurism” and as “mere information for its own self-survival”, there has been both stagnation of workers' rights and decline in labor protests – with the exception of few areas (like the mass protests in Madison, Wisconsin).

Many American middle class workers, blue or white collar, became too comfortable with their incomes, benefits, middle class lifestyles and community networks that they forgot to be vigilant to how their rights were being slowly eroded – even as they moved up the economic ladder. Many also, unfortunately, colluded with the big corporate boys (from car manufacturers to currency manipulators) to allow for policies and actions that were unkind to third world workers, sabotaged domestic labor laws and manipulated political systems to protect or sustain the status quo.

I had mentioned more than a decade ago that as “capital gets globalized” and the “rich get multinational”, with leadership that does not connect or commit to any community or issues other than its narrow economic interests and wealth accumulation, labor has been locally trapped or/and internationally exploited.

Workers are either stuck in their environments, and are unable to move for better jobs, better pay, better respect, better inclusion and better mobility, or they are forced to move for survival - while they continue to remain second class citizens or servile subordinates globally.

Work has many forms, faces and types. In many ways everyone who has to work for “survival”, and relies on their earned income, small savings and careful budgeting to manage and cope economically (including teachers and faculty), are “workers” and are part of the “working class”. We work, or are forced to work, to survive and struggle with all the psychological anxiety, challenges and stress of trying to manage “basic economic demands, obligations and requirements”.

Rich people, even many millionaires, who complain about “not having enough” so they can send their kids to expensive private schools, shop frequently at designer stores, go on expensive vacations and celebrate in exotic places, do not count! Whining by the rich or the upper classes over their victimization or economic struggles do not indicate “struggle for survival” (working or middle class).

If you have to work to pay your rent, food expenses, electricity, etc. you are working class. If you do not have more than six months of savings to pay your basic expenses (as you look for a job or consider a career change) you are working class. If you have to forgo visiting your own family for funerals or weddings because you cannot afford the travel and accommodation then you are working class. If you have to sell your family jewelry, your car or borrow money to pay for an emergency (like an accident, an illness or arrange a funeral) then you are part of a struggling working class. If you live in a rented accommodation, and cannot afford a house (even if you have worked for twenty years), you are poor or working class.

More than ninety percent of the world is working class! The five percent that is not owns eighty percent of the global wealth. More than eighty percent of the wealthy live or are from Western countries.

Exploitation and abuse of labor not only leads to labor resentment, incompetency, sloppiness and shoddiness (can you blame them?), it also leads to, as Alex Kerr argues in Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan (2001), loss of intelligent knowledge, including important technical know-how, which can lead to mismanagement of very dangerous disasters - like the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor fiasco.

Corporations operate like bureaucracies...sometimes worse than Government bureaucracies. Corporations have often avoided responsibilities – even during times of danger and disaster caused by their neglect or actions. They point fingers at other corporations, at the press, at the public and at Governments (that they have tried to buy and control). They cover-up their oversights, errors, neglect and crimes.

In many instances Corporations lie, commit criminal violations and cover-up better than Governments: because they have more money, they are private and citizens' groups watch Governments more carefully and more often than Corporations. Example: American Libertarians and Tea Party activists have scrutinized Government policies and actions, including excessive Executive Power, better than many Corporate policies and actions.

Labor Unions and Workers' Rights have to expand beyond old manufacturing industries - as manufacturing itself has changed. Manufacturing has gotten mechanized, technically advanced and globalized. But labor rights and laws have not gotten more consistent, advanced and globalized. They remain local, they remain trapped in early 19th century Western laws and they are confined to jobs that are primarily industrial, physical and assembly-line focused.

We need reformed labor laws that can be pursued and implemented by new labor institutions, created by a global labor movement, that is more expansive, inclusive and can take actions against corporate exploitation, abuse, neglect, lies and criminality wherever it occurs. 

How many nuclear reactor catastrophes - that we now know were due to faults, defects and serious problems, including concerns about a possible tsunami effect, that were covered-up - do we have to contend with before we hold corporations accountable? How many workers must die, get injured or get put in harm's way for corporate greed and neglect?

How many workers: from Bangladesh to Bulgaria, from China to Chile, from England to El Salvador, from Nepal to Nigeria, from India to Ireland, from Pakistan to Portugal, from Sri Lanka to Singapore, from the United States to Uganda...must jump from a burning building, to their death, because they chose to work...and did so to merely survive?

As my gracious grandmother, Visalakshi, often mourned when listening to the news on human tragedies, “Oh my goodness, how much ugly karma must we accumulate for every human stupidity, greed and evil? When will human beings learn? It takes so little to be good and human, but so much more to be inhuman. Why do so many choose the latter?”

My grandmother passed away more than twenty years ago, and all I can say to her spirit after all these years is, “Patti, wish I knew! After all my education, books, travel and experience all I can admit to is, 'Human ignorance, stupidity, selfishness, cruelty and evil continues to baffle me!' Any advice from the other side?"

Lets work better and together for a global labor movement and institutions that protect, secure and serve labor...as they serve us! 

What is the difference between American media and Gaddafi's propaganda?

I tried five TV channels (FOX, CNN, MSNBC, Link TV, Free Speech TV), and several radio stations, to get a balanced, reliable and an accurate take on this Libya crisis - from the tsunami crisis (that has left the American psyche) to the Daiichi nuclear reactor crisis (that is now a distant memory for most – though it was less than a week ago)...and the only decently thoughtful five minute coverage was from an obscure local Iowa news.

I had to go to a small radio station, way outside the Midwest, to be able to get some trustworthy reporting and intelligent analysis on Libya. I have been saying all along that “analyzing Gaddafi's badness or madness”, as it is going on in the popular media, should not be the priority. It is the belief  that a “military intervention” for what is a “humanitarian crisis” would succeed and be effective that needs to be analyzed.

Dr. Phyllis Bennis, at the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington D.C., admitted in a talk radio (March 19, 2011) that five countries on the United Nations' Security Council, big players in the UN and beyond, abstained from the UN resolution for a no-fly zone over Libya. Why is that not being discussed?

Though this Libya action is presented as a multilateral intervention, unlike the Iraq invasion of 2003, it is much more unilateral than it appears. France's role in pushing this resolution might be more symbolic – rather than serving as an actual military ally in the no-fly operation.

With all the focus on Libya, Bahrain and Yemen have been forgotten in much of the American news. Protesters there have been arrested, shot at, injured, many have gone missing and more than fifty people have been killed in Sanaa alone. The governments of Yemen and Bahrain have used “ruthless force” against their protesters. A MSNBC (supposedly more liberal and fair among the news agencies) reporter actually stated on Friday, 18th of March (paraphrased), “We are not covering Yemen and Bahrain because the protest there is of no interest to America. Their governments are good for us!”

Not even a pretense of independence, objectivity, detached reporting or real international-care in many American popular news agencies anymore. Should not someone be reprimanding these news media for such blatant admission of “inconsistency and hypocrisy”? In the media, even privately run by corporations, there is more competition and digression on commercial issues than on basic news reporting.

With all this we are supposed to believe that Gaddafi is the only one who indulges in propaganda?

It is easy to call all of this “theater of the absurd” - and then chuckle about it. That is what some powers would want – and they are not all conservative these days. While Japan has not received a lot of aid after a major catastrophe - though 50% of the American military-base expenses are borne by the Japanese government and their taxpayers, this excessive “delusion” that “resilience" and "a move-on, move-on psychology" alone will solve everything, popularized by the press, has to be confronted. Resilience requires the right support, sharing, cooperation, education, generosity and reciprocity.

In many ways Japan has dealt with one of its worst crisis with grace and humility. America has turned its economic woes, far from a catastrophe, into another military exercise in a region that it has treated with contempt and superiority for decades. And those who bring this up are usually silenced, marginalized and even unfairly attacked. As one ad for “Peace and Justice in the World” stated, “Thank you for not shooting me or ruining me!” Surviving certain countries, I guess, is the greatest achievement these days.

There are many ways that news is selectively used or manufactured to keep the status-quo, and the public preoccupied or distracted so certain agendas can be pushed through. Whether it is over throwing one dictator while funding another ; whether it is doctoring photos and visuals to create a story or a theme ; whether it is shifting or twisting arguments for one's cultural or economic convenience...or finding ways, insidious and militaristic, to attain, establish, protect and promote “power”.

How else, as my wonderful policy mentor once said, “Can we keep the Frankenstein of a system called 'development' going? We created it, we pursued it and now we kill to keep it! I am a good Christian...even I cannot imagine the karmic price we are going to pay for this?”

As one activist, and bless our world for such sensitively thinking and sweetly caring people, stated, “I have never felt as ashamed or as afraid of the US as I have for the last ten years”.

Are those ten years going to become twenty, thirty, forty...?

What is Going on With Libya - Though We Know What's Going to Go Over It Soon?

If  Dr.Susan Rice, America's ambassador to the UN, is sounding more like Dr. Condoleezza Rice, we now have a foreign policy in the Middle East that looks more like a post-cursor to Iraq 2003...using distraction this time, rather than deception, to keep people from reacting or protesting. A young journalist called it, “A brilliant move by men and women who operate with the same cunning as Gaddafi!”

While everybody was busy with the earthquake, tsunami and a possible nuclear reactor blowup in Japan, so was I, there were whole lot of people busy domestically passing conservative policies (in different US States), and pushing for a “No-Fly Zone” over Libya - which may be just a nice public relations word for “invasion and occupation with pizazz”.

Gaddafi went from being a terrorist to being a reasonable leader to being a popular ally to being a...terrorist again – all in forty years! Why? He is the same guy doing the same thing that he has done for years: being an arrogant, autocratic, bombastic, charming, demanding, erratic, fluctuating, shrewd, smart, sometimes-ruthless dictator. What changed?

We know Muammar al-Gaddafi was born in a Bedouin in 1942. As a boy Gaddafi attended a Muslim elementary school, during which time the major events occurring in the Arab world, including the struggles for independence, profoundly influenced him. Gaddafi entered the Libyan military academy at Benghazi in 1961 and, along with most of his colleagues from the Revolutionary Command Council, graduated sometime between 1965 -1966 (according to Wikipedia).

Like so many of his generation who found economic opportunity through military service (much like many minorities in the United States), or social acceptance through a military career (much like elite men in many cultures), Gaddafi joined a military training program at the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst, England (though citation for this is needed). Later he attended another military school in Athens, Greece.

While Gaddafi identified strongly with early Arab nationalism, his strong statements against Western interference in the Middle East put him on a “watch target”, and later, he claimed, like Fidel Castro, on an “assassination target”.

Gaddafi and Libya were put on a “terrorist list” by the US government after his admission that he had been responsible for several bombings (including the downing of a Pan Am flight), and assassination attempts against several world leaders (though the latter has not all been confirmed).

Wikipedia states that it is “the frustration and shame felt by Libyan officers, who stood by helplessly at the time of Israel's swift and humiliating defeat of Arab armies on three fronts in 1967”, that fueled Gaddafi's determination to overthrow the Libyan monarchy and bring about Arab unity.

In September 1969 a small group of junior military officers, led by Gaddafi, staged a bloodless coup against King Idris while he was away in Turkey. The King's nephew, the Crown Prince Sayyid Hasan, was formally deposed, put under house arrest, and the new Libyan Arab Republic was born.

In wake of Gaddafi's success a plan was organized by one Sir Archibald David Stirling, a mountaineer and a World War II British Army officer who founded the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1941, to use mercenaries to restore the monarchy at the request of the deposed Crown Prince. The mercenaries were to spring 150 political prisoners from a Tripoli jail as a catalyst for a general uprising – strategy often used in this region to depose unpopular leaders. This particular scheme was called the "Hilton Assignment" - as an ironic comment on the comfort level at Libyan jails. The United States did not find Gaddafi sufficiently anti-Marxist to support this secret plot.

In the fifteen months before Stirling himself was captured the SAS (Special Air Service), which later became the Intelligence wing of the British air force, had destroyed over 250 aircraft on the ground, dozens of supply dumps, roads, wrecked railway communications, and had put hundreds of enemy vehicles out of action. Montgomery of Alamein, another officer with the British military, described David Stirling as “mad, quite mad”, but added that one needed men like Stirling in the time of war (Wikipedia).

Bill Stirling, brother of David Stirling, took over the SAS after his brother was captured. He later founded Watchguard International Ltd. - a company that did business with the Gulf States. Bill Stirling was also linked, along with an associate D. Rowley, in a failed attempt to overthrow Gaddafi in 1970-71. Stirling later became the founder of a private military company KAS International - Kas Enterprise (Pretoria Inquiry Confirms...”, The Independent, 18 January 1996).

Having survived several assassination attempts himself, both by the West and from some of his dissidents, Gaddafi was often accused of running the most repressive country in Africa. Gaddafi's regime has executed dissidents publicly, and the executions have often been broadcast on state television channels.

Freedom of the Press Index ranks Libya as one of the most censored countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Amnesty International listed twenty-five assassinations between 1980 and 1987 that Gaddafi supposedly attempted on world leaders. Gaddafi also waged several campaigns against his neighboring country of Chad, and withdrew troops from Chad only at the judgment of the International Court of Justice.

There is no doubt that Gaddafi is a notorious and ruthless dictator. But...what is prompting the sudden attempt (taken in March of 2011) to overthrow Gaddafi after forty years - ten of which Gaddafi spent successfully wooing Western leaders, including those countries that are now calling for a no-fly zone?

It was in March 2004 British Prime Minister Tony Blair became the first of many Westerns leaders to visit Libya. There he praised Gaddafi's acts of peace with the West. Prime Minister Blair had openly stated, before his visit, that he hoped Libya would become a strong ally with England and the United States in their international War on Terror.

He said, as quoted by the editor of The Daily Telegraph (13 of August 2009),

"In his four decades as Libya's 'Brother Leader', Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has gone from being the epitome of revolutionary chic to an eccentric statesman with entirely benign relations with the West."

On May 2006, the US State Department announced that it would restore full diplomatic relations with Libya - once Gaddafi declared he was abandoning Libya's weapons of mass destruction program. Gaddafi did. The State Department removed Libya from the list of nations supporting terrorism.

In July 2007, French president Nicolas Sarkozy visited Libya and signed a number of bilateral and multilateral (EU) agreements with Gaddafi. He also successfully pursued Libya's first nuclear program contract.

On 4 March 2008 Gaddafi announced his intention to dissolve his country's existing administrative structure and disburse oil revenue directly to the people. The plan included abolishing all ministries, except those of defense, internal security, foreign affairs and several departments that implement strategic projects (Gaddafi Comes in From the Cold, In Express.co.uk, July 11, 2009).

In September 2008, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Libya and met with Gaddafi as part of a North African tour. This was the first visit to Libya by a US Secretary of State since 1953.

In January 2009, Gaddafi contributed to an editorial in The New York Times - suggesting that he was in favor of a single-state solution that moved beyond old conflicts in the Middle East, and looked to a unified future of shared culture and mutual respect. This was not popular with many Palestinians and Muslims.

There are claims that even two years before Sept 11, 2001 Gaddafi pledged his commitment to fighting Al Queda, and  offered to open up Libya's weapons program to international inspection (in a conversation with the Italian Prime Minster, Berlusconi, in 2003). His offer was not pursed actively by the Clinton and Bush administration as Libya's weapons program was not considered a threat.

Obviously Gaddafi was trying to improve his image in, and connections with, the West - though he is known for his extremely erratic statements, with commentators often expressing doubt whether he is being sarcastic or just incoherent.

So what is going on with this sudden No-Fly Zone over Libya?

 Is reliable and thorough information on this matter over too?