Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO of this report.

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

This is James Corbett of The Corbett Report with your Sunday Update from the Centre for Research on Globalization at globalresearch.ca. And now for the real news.

New, unconfirmed reports out late last week suggest that the US is preparing to deploy ground forces to Libya this fall in direct contradiction to all public assurances that the conflict was merely a “kinetic military action” and would not involve boots on the ground. The reports, citing military sources at Ft. Hood, indicate that additional Special Forces will be sent to the region in July, with the 1^st Calvary Division and three corps to be deployed in the country in October or November. In total, nearly 30,000 troops are said to be preparing for this escalation.

These reports are further bolstered by recently-released video showing what appear to be NATO military advisers directly interfacing with rebel forces on the front lines of the ground conflict.

Now, a legal battle is shaping up on Capitol Hill between the White House and a bipartisan group of Congressman and Senators who are formally challenging the legality of Obama’s use of the military in the region long after the expiry of the sixty-day War Powers Act limit for the President to wage a military operation without congressional approval.

Remarkably, the Obama White House issued a breathtaking defense of its own illegal position last week, continuing to use the argument that the bombardment of the civilian population in Libya does not, in fact, constitute “hostilities” as set out in the War Powers Act.

This denial comes even as fresh reports surfaced last week that Tripoli’s Nasser University was bombed as part of the NATO campaign, with numerous univesity staff injured and killed. The Centre for Research on Globalization published exclusive photographs of the bombing on globalresearch.ca earlier this week. The photographs were supplied by Mohammed Al-Alam, one of the students at the university, and include graphic photos of the civilian deaths in the bombing.

The United States is not the only administration increasingly under fire for its participation in the NATO campaign. In an article late last week, Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa details how the Canadian parliament passed a resolution in favour of extending Canada’s participation in the campaign. Despite a recent election sending numerous members of the far left and nominally anti-war New Democrats into the position of the official opposition in parliament, the only person to vote against the resolution was Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party.

For more on the preparations for ground war in Libya and their significance, I turned to Professor Chossudovsky, director of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

[interview]

The corporate media has come under heavy fire from watchdog organizations and international observers who have concluded that reporters are purposefully hiding the extent of the atrocities being committed by the western-backed rebel forces even as dubious reports about Gaddafi’s atrocities, including tales that Libyan soldiers were given Viagra to help fuel rape sessions on the Libyan population, have been reported unquestioningly.

A new team of independent media and observers are heading to the region to report on the extent of the NATO bombardment and civilian casualties that have resulted from the conflict. Joining us last week to talk about the media manipulations of the conflict was Global Research associate Mahdi Nazemroaya.

[interview]

As escalation in Libya becomes more likely, alternative media voices become more important in providing a counter-balance to officially sanctioned propaganda for the war effort. One of those voices, Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times, talked to The Corbett Report last Thursday about the specter of a ground war and the importance of an independent media in propagating real news about the Libyan operation.