What is the Arab Spring?

By Irvin Baxter

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

 

If what President Roosevelt said is true, then what was the plan behind the revolution called the “Arab Spring”, and who planned it?

 

 

Four factors have surfaced repeatedly in the news reports about the Arab Spring:

1. Responsibility To Protect
2. The International Criminal Court
3. NATO as the enforcement arm of the UN
4. Oil

It’s impossible to understand who planned the Arab Spring and why they planned it unless we understand these four factors.

 

Responsibility To Protect

In 2005, I attended the UN’s World Summit as an accredited journalist representing Endtime magazine and Endtime Ministries’ radio talk program, “Politics & Religion”.

 

As I sat in the UN’s press room with Reuters, Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and other news representatives from around the world, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan entered for the press conference to report on the Outcome Document for the 2005 World Summit. (An Outcome Document is the summation of agreements reached at a summit.)

 

While acknowledging that some goals anticipated by the press had not been reached, Annan stated that sometimes we should see the glass as half full, not half empty. He proceeded to disclose that the nations had agreed to an historic expansion of power for the UN. This new power was called the “Responsibility To Protect.”

 

As I sat in the press conference listening to Annan’s explanation, I knew immediately why he was placing so much importance on this new power to be exercised by the international community.

 

The constitution of the United Nations specifically limited the world government body to arbitrating between sovereign nations. The UN was specifically forbidden to intervene in the domestic affairs of any nation. With this one simple Outcome Document, the limitations on UN power were swept aside, and the sovereignty of nations ceased to exist.

 

Responsibility To Protect simply states that, if a government commits genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, or war crimes against its own people, the world community has an obligation to protect the people from their government, using whatever means necessary, including force, to bring about regime change. And, by the way, the UN is the prosecutor, the jury, and the judge in deciding whether these “crimes against humanity” have been committed.

 

Few people in 2005 understood the quantum shift that had just taken place in the world’s power structure. However, the reality of the power shift to a system of world government is now being felt in earnest with the emergence of the Arab Spring.

 

The drill goes something like this:

1. Demonstrations against the targeted government are fomented by social media, inciting people to take to the streets.
2. The demonstrators demand changes that can only be granted by the abdication of the government.
3. The government feels it now has no recourse except to disperse the demonstrators by force.
4. Fatalities occur and are publicized by the world’s media, creating the justification for intervention under the Responsibility To Protect clause.
5. The UN passes a resolution approving economic sanctions and, if necessary, military force against the government of the targeted nation.
6. NATO, which has now become the military enforcement arm of the UN, moves to assist the demonstrators in the toppling of the government.
7. The UN provides assistance to rebuild the nation in the image of the New World Order.
8. A warrant is issued from the International Criminal Court for the arrest of the head-of-state, thus making him a fugitive while sending a warning to all other national leaders of what could happen to them if they do not bow the knee to the will of the global governance of the international community.
9. The international oil cartel moves in to “help” the newly formed government administer the oil resources.

“To the victors go the spoils.”

 

The International Criminal Court (ICC)

The campaign for a permanent world court that could place individuals, including kings and presidents, on trial was on. The World Federalist Association, whose openly avowed goal is a one-world government, was happily leading the charge. Among the inner circle of those advocating a system of global governance, it was felt that the time was ripe for setting up an international court to enforce international law.

 

On September 22, 1997, President Bill Clinton stepped to the podium of the United Nations to welcome the world’s leaders to New York for the 52^nd session of the UN General Assembly. His speech contained the usual diplomatic greetings and pleasantries.

 

Toward the end of the speech came the bombshell! “Before the century ends, we should establish a permanent international criminal court.”

 

The heads-of-state present that day fully understood that the President of the most powerful nation on earth had just endorsed taking global governance to the next level.

 

Immediately, the international advocates swung into high gear. The Preparatory Committee completed its work on the draft of the constitution for the court in April of 1998. Then came the international conference to finalize the charter of the International Criminal Court. The conference ran from June 15–July 17, 1998. On July 17, 1998, the nations represented at the conference voted 120-7 to approve the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Another very big shoe had dropped in the march toward one-world government that had begun with the founding of the United Nations in 1945.

 

Four categories of crimes were placed under the power of the ICC for prosecution: Genocide, Crimes against humanity, War crimes, and Crimes of aggression. Because a definition of Crimes of aggression could not be agreed upon by the nations, it was decided that Crimes of aggression would not be prosecuted until the definition could be settled. The intended definition by authors of the ICC constitution was: Any war begun without previous approval of the United Nations Security Council would be considered a crime of aggression.

 

If power to prosecute crimes of aggression had been in place in 2003, both George W. Bush and Tony Blair could have been prosecuted by the court for the invasion of Iraq without UN approval. UN Secretary General at the time, Kofi Annan, actually stated that he believed the invasion of Iraq was an illegal war.

 

The ICC statute was ratified by the required sixty nations by April 11, 2002, and the formation of the court’s structures began in earnest. On March 11, 2003, the court’s first eighteen judges were sworn in. The Court issued its first arrest warrants on July 8, 2005.

 

We have now seen the International Criminal Court in action. Arrest warrants for two heads-of-state have been issued in the last two years.

 

In 2009, the ICC issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for crimes against humanity. So far, he has avoided arrest by traveling only in those countries that have not signed the ICC treaty.

 

In 2011, at the request of the UN Security Council, the ICC issued a warrant for the arrest of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. At the present time he has not yet been arrested.

 

It has become obvious that the International Criminal Court is casting its long shadow across the globe. World leaders are being forced to consider whether their actions violate international law before they implement them. Result? The power of international law is already being imposed upon the leaders of the world. We are already in world government, and its reach is growing longer and stronger each day.

 

NATO becomes army of the UN

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed on April 4, 1949. Its purpose was to protect Western European nations against the spread of communism. The communist bloc responded by forming the Warsaw Pact in 1955. These two military entities then faced each other until the end of the Cold War.

 

When Mikhail Gorbachev brought his reforms to the world, he dissolved the Warsaw Pact, saying that he was depriving the West of an enemy. Many expected NATO to follow suit and disband. But it didn’t.

 

With the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact, NATO became the world’s most lethal military alliance, but it had no mission.

 

NATO’s new purpose began to emerge when a military arm was needed to enforce the will of the world community on Bosnia.

 

Then when Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic (be he saint or be he devil) became an obstacle to the integration of Yugoslavia into the European Union, President Bill Clinton, using NATO forces, orchestrated the war that drove Milosevic from power and resulted in the absorption of Yugoslavia into the EU. Milosevic was then kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to The Hague where he was placed on trial before the world court. His trial lasted for four years. Milosevic died during the proceedings and before a verdict could be rendered.

 

The evolving role of NATO in world affairs is clearly demonstrated by its recent actions in Libya.

 

On February 15, 2011, the government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi arrested human rights activist Fethi Tarbel. This sparked a riot in the city of Benghazi and marked the beginning of the Arab Spring revolution in Libya.

 

Protests escalated into an uprising that spread across the country, with the forces opposing Gaddafi establishing a government based in Benghazi named the National Transitional Council whose stated goal was to overthrow the Gaddafi-led government and hold democratic elections.

 

On February 26th, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Gaddafi and his family, and referred Libya’s crackdown on rebels to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

 

So within a mere eleven days of the beginning of the demonstrations, UN sanctions were imposed and Gaddafi’s crackdown was referred to the ICC for possible prosecution. The entire process certainly smacked of a pre-planned operation!

 

On March 17th, the UN Security Council voted to authorize a no-fly zone over Libya and the enactment of “all necessary measures” (code for military action) to protect civilians against Gaddafi’s army.

 

On March 19th, the first air strikes were launched by NATO, halting the advance of Gaddafi’s forces on Benghazi and targeting Libya’s air defenses. The pretense was gone. NATO was now the official military arm of the United Nations.

 

On June 27th, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity.

 

For the next two months, NATO escalated its involvement in the war against Gaddafi. It bombed his compound, supplied millions of dollars in arms to the rebels, and finally supplied advisors on the ground to train and lead the rebels.

 

By early September, the rebels had taken the Libyan capital of Tripoli and Gaddafi was running for his life. As we go to press, the latest reports are saying that a large convoy of Libyan soldiers has crossed the border into Niger. It is speculated that Gaddafi may be among them, but no one knows for sure at the moment.

 

One thing is sure. The regime of Gaddafi is toppled, and NATO provided the air power, the military equipment, and the expertise to bring it to pass.

 

The question that must be asked is why? Why did the world community act so decisively, and why did the US provide NATO with all necessary means to bring about the regime change in Libya?

 

Oil

US Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the former chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, told MSNBC that a primary reason for the intervention in Libya was oil.

 

“…It all goes back to the 5 million barrels of oil that we import from (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) on a daily basis,” he told MSNBC. Libya, before the war, was responsible for slightly more than 4 percent of the OPEC’s output, amounting to about 1,600,000 barrels per day.

 

But the quality of Libya’s oil may be more important than the sheer volume of production. Libya’s “sweet light crude” oil is extremely low in sulfur content, which makes it highly desirable in global markets. It’s cleaner burning and easier to refine into gasoline. Saudi Arabian oil, in contrast, contains much more sulfur. Swap in Saudi oil for missing Libyan oil and you end up maxing out world refinery capacity and hiking downstream prices for gasoline.

 

Rising oil prices are considered a major threat to US economic recovery. So if you’re looking for an explanation for Western willingness to intervene in Libya, there you have it. Instability in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain or Yemen has little potential for upsetting world energy markets. Libya is a major player. What happens there can and will affect the global economy.

 

The problems between the US and Libya probably began last year when Obama supported Switzerland after Swiss authorities arrested Gaddafi’s son. At that time Libya claimed it would begin to favor Russia and China in oil and gas deals.

 

When Western oil companies fled as unrest flared in Libya earlier this year, Gaddafi invited Chinese, Russian, and Indian firms to fill the void. “We are ready to bring Chinese and Indian companies to replace Western ones,” he said.

 

Of the West, Gaddafi said, “We do not trust their firms. They have conspired against us.” That is, News Source No Longer Available — Continue to Endtime ». “The Germans have taken a very good position toward us, very different from many other important countries in the West,” he said, asserting that Germany was the only Western country with whom he could foresee doing business in the future.

 

Is it a strange coincidence that Russia, China, India, and Germany – all countries with the ability to strike oil deals with Gaddafi – were the ones that abstained from the UN Security Council resolution authorizing intervention? Brazil, who has billions of dollars of contracts in Libya, also abstained.

 

So did the US-Libya Business Association press the US government to intervene in the hopes that US oil and gas companies could strike better deals with a successor regime? And if so, is this a primary though overlooked reason for the US intervention? The question is certainly worth asking!

 

The information manager at the rebel-controlled Arabian Gulf Oil Company expressed the new regime’s intentions going forward: “We don’t have a problem with Western countries like the Italians, French and UK companies. But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil.” Those last three countries weren’t involved in the NATO mission in Libya.

 

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire; and where there’s war, there’s oil.

 

So what is the message of the Arab Spring?

The Arab Spring is being exploited to showcase the world community’s newly claimed power—The Responsibility To Protect (some see it as the Right To Invade). This new power obviously means the end of national sovereignty, as we have known it.

 

The Romans used to crucify enemies of the state along busy roads. They wanted the people to observe the fate of those who resisted the Romans’ global rule. Fear was invoked to insure obedience.

 

The world community is using prosecution before the International Criminal Court for the exact same purpose. The message to the world’s heads-of-state is coming through with no room for misunderstanding: “Resist the will of the international community, and you will end up before The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity.”

 

For many years, the United Nations was regarded as somewhat of a paper tiger. But no more! The whole world now knows that the UN has a powerful army at its disposal that no one is able to resist. The bombs of NATO falling on the armies of Muammar Gaddafi sent that message loud and clear.

 

Finally, the US has demonstrated that access to the world’s oil supplies must be protected at any cost. Whoever controls the oil resources of the world, controls the world.

 

Iraq is about oil. Afghanistan is about oil. Libya is about oil.

 

It’s called the Arab Spring, but it appears to be leading us straight into the arms of the prophesied one-world government and the Global Winter called the Great Tribulation.