Mr. Obama opts for the upside. “Iraq is not a perfect place, but we are leaving a sovereign, stable and self-reliant country with a representative government elected by its people,” he said.

With oil riches powering a growing Iraqi economy, a fractious but functioning democracy seems a hopeful possibility. Perhaps Baghdad will again be the sophisticated hub of learning, culture and Arab dynamism.

But far darker outcomes remain equally possible. In those scenarios, Iraq returns to bloody sectarian strife, abandoned by its liberators and at the mercy of meddling Iran. Or it implodes into civil war, pitting Kurds against Arabs and Shiites against Sunnis in a conflict that could spread.

Mr. Obama stopped well short of declaring victory. He avoided the euphoric and foolish “Mission Accomplished” stunt staged by his predecessor in the heady weeks of military triumph in 2003 that preceded years of bloody struggle.

But even Mr. Obama’s more carefully chosen words have a worrisome echo.

Nearly four decades earlier, another president, Richard Nixon, proclaimed “peace with honour,” to end another unpopular, decade-long nightmare. That war, in Vietnam, tore America apart even as it set Southeast Asia on fire. It was a phase that would haunt America.

By comparison, the Iraq war, while deeply divisive, left most American families untouched. In the all-volunteer army era, only a minority of families even know someone in uniform, let alone live with the daily fear that a family member will be killed overseas.

The two wars differ in many ways. But both defined their decade and the fate of presidents.

In Vietnam, “peace with honour” was ephemeral. In chaotic scenes that still sear the American psyche, helicopters plucked desperate diplomats from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon and America’s Southeast Asian military misadventure ended in disgrace.

If, as critics believe, Mr. Obama has let the political expediency of making good on a campaign promise trump America’s strategic interests, and Iraq spirals into violence or, worse, falls under the Shia sway of Iran’s ruling mullahs, then there may be future flights of helicopters into ignominy.

Mr. Obama has hardly washed his hands of Iraq. The pullout came only because Iraq wouldn’t grant immunity to the tens of thousands of troops Washington wanted to leave behind as “trainers” and “advisers.”

Even so, Mr. Obama has pledged to back Iraq’s shaky democracy. Washington has set aside $2.3-billion just to run its Baghdad embassy next year – by far the world’s largest and including a battalions of Marines and multiple helicopter-landing zones, should they be needed.

A war that became nightmarishly complex began with the simple premise: Saddam Hussein defied demands that he give up weapons of mass destruction and posed a grave threat to the United States, Mr. Bush said. Mr. Hussein called his bluff.

So, already at war in Afghanistan, Mr. Bush launched a second front, with “shock and awe” to oust the Iraqi dictator.

In a few short weeks, Mr. Hussein fled and Iraq’s military collapsed. But there were far too few American troops to prevent Iraq from spiralling into chaos. Within months it became starkly and embarrassingly evident that there were no chemical, biological or nuclear arsenals, that the whole premise of the war was at best flawed, at worst a lie.

Sectarian strife verged on civil war. Tens of thousands of Iraqis died in each of the years that followed until 2007 when, belatedly, a surge of additional U.S. forces established a modicum of order, if not peace.

“We are co-ordinating with the Libyan Ministry of Justice to ensure that any solution with regards to the arrest of Saif al-Islam is in accordance with the law,” an ICC prosecution office spokeswoman said.
Libyan militia commander Bashir al-Tayeleb said Saif was captured in the town of Obari along with two aides trying to smuggle him out to neighbouring Niger.
The 39-year-old, who studied in the UK, is wanted for crimes against humanity.
He was reportedly taken by aeroplane to the city of Zintan, the home of one of the largest revolutionary brigades in Libya.

Upon arrival, witnesses say an angry crowd tried to storm the plane.
Sky reporter Mark Stone says the circumstances of Saif’s capture and detention show potential fractures within the various regional factions of the National Transitional Council.
Reporters in Tripoli were told Saif would be held in Zintan until there was a government to hand him over to.
The government is due to be formed within days.
“The rebels of Zintan announce that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has been arrested along with three of his aides today,” Tayeleb said in an announcement broadcast on Libyan television.
“We hope at this historical moment that the future of Libya will be bright.”
There was still no information about wanted former intelligence director Abdullah Senoussi or where he is located.
An arrest warrant for Saif had been issued by the ICC since June 27.
His arrest follows the death of his father who was killed a month ago after being captured in his hometown of Sirte.
Saif was the last of Gaddafi’s sons to be accounted for. Before the downfall of the Gaddafi regime, Saif was considered to be the presumptive heir.
The UK Foreign Office told Sky News that they are watching reports closely.
Commentators say Libya is under pressure to handle the detention of Saif in a “civilized” way in the wake of Colonel Gaddafi’s bloody death at the hands of rebels.
Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: “The government of Libya is on trial. Anything other than due process should not be tolerated.
“The UK did not commit in Libya to tolerate extra-judicial assassination as happened with his father.
“If Libya wishes to take its place among civilised nations it must take this opportunity to demonstrate it’s commitment to the rule of law.”

While reports of Gadaffi’s death were confused there seemed little doubt over the claims’ authenticity as the Morning Star went to press.

Although Libyan NTC forces claimed the colonel had been killed in ground fighting Nato counter-claimed that its planes had blasted a fleeing convoy that was carrying into refuge.

NTC Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said that he had been told that Gadaffi was dead by fighters who claimed to have seen the body.

Celebratory gunfire and cries of Allahu Akbar rang out across Tripoli as reports of his death spread,

In Sirte, NTC fighters celebrated the city’s fall after weeks of bloody siege by firing endless rounds into the air, pumping their guns, waving knifes and even a meat cleaver in the air.

The final assault on Sirte began at 8am and ended about 90 minutes later.

Just before the battle about five carloads of Gadaffi loyalists reportedly tried to flee the enclave, but they were met by gunfire by NTC forces which killed at least 20 of them.

Nato spokesman Roland Lavoie said the alliance’s aircraft had hit two vehicles of pro-Gadaffi forces.

The Misrata military council said that its fighters had captured Gadaffi but another commander Abdel-Basit Harun said Gadaffi had been killed when the air strike hit the convoy.

In fact the only thing on which the disparate elements of the anti-Gadaffi forces agreed on was the death of the country’s leader of 42 years.

foreigneditor@peoples-press.com

Hope exists for a cancer breakthrough after scientists altered the T cells of leukemia sufferers — part of their own immune system — to successfully kill off cancer cells.  
Two of three patients who had the genetically modified T cells infused back into their body following chemotherapy, remained cancer-free for more than a year. One patient showed significant improvement.
“This is a huge accomplishment — huge,” Dr. Lee M. Nadler of Harvard Medical School told the Los Angeles Times of the trial cancer treatment, reportedly 20 years in the making.
The treatment, pioneered by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, involves infecting the white blood cells of patients with advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia with a virus, and instructing those T cells to bind to cancer cells and ultimately kill them.
In each of the three patients studied, each virus-infected T cell killed about 1,000 cancer cells, according to the scientists’ findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine.
“Within three weeks, the tumors had been blown away, in a way that was much more violent than we ever expected,” senior author Dr. Carl H June said, the Times reports.
The scientists cautioned that the full effectiveness of the treatment could only be known once it was administered to a larger pool of patients.

BBC News twice reported this morning that troops were being readied. The statement was first made by a reporter at 8:30am and then repeated by a Metropolitan Police representative who said “all options were on the table”.

U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May confirms that the government is considering “military support for the police”. http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201108090402d…

Curfews are also being discussed as authorities prepare to transform Britain into a locked down police state.

“Armoured vehicles have been brought in to clear the streets for the first time by police to tackle what senior officers say is the worst rioting and looting in living memory,” reports the Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/09/london-riots-police-armoured-vehicles

“I have not heard of a curfew on mainland Britain in the past century. [It's] very difficult to impose. I’m not saying that it is definitely the way forward but it is something we have to consider,” Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington told BBC Breakfast. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/09/london-riots-violence-looting-live

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone called for police to use water cannons to disperse the rioters. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/193059.html

Having started in poorer areas of London, the riots have now spread to other major cities including Bristol, Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester.

There can be little doubt that the vast majority of the rioters are products of the country’s broken society, nihilistic youths who care little about political grievances and are primarily focused with exploiting the chaos to steal as much booty as they possibly can while getting off on mindless violence. This behavior ensures the public will overwhelmingly support whatever measures are proposed to deal with them, even to the point of outright martial law.

These youths should not be seen as the vanguard of some kind of genuine revolution against an abusive system. If that were the case they would be rioting outside of Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. Instead they are burning down private homes and businesses while looting high-end electrical goods and clothing.

But what has exacerbated the situation is the lackluster police response, with numerous reports from the public that police stood back and allowed looters to pillage both large department stores and private small businesses for hours on end.

During the initial riots in Tottenham on Sunday night, police were criticized for “standing back and allowing rioters to cause havoc.” This trend has continued throughout the three nights of mayhem, with eyewitnesses bewildered at how the police have obviously been ordered not to arrest looters and rioters in some instances. http://www.metro.co.uk/news/871655-tottenham-riots-police-stood-back-and-let-…

We have been predicting the onset of widespread rioting and civil unrest for years, particularly in the UK. Last year we wrote that crippling austerity cuts would force the economically deprived to “take to the streets with a mind set of nothing to lose if the government handouts they have become dependent on are drastically reduced.” http://www.prisonplanet.com/austerity-fascism-is-coming-and-it-will-be-brutal…

Make no mistake about it, these riots will be hastily exploited by the system to turn Britain into an even more controlled and surveilled police state than it already is. The riots achieve absolutely nothing aside from making the establishment look reasonable in whatever response it takes, measures which will be fully supported by a public bombarded with images of chaos, looting and burning. Article Source: Paul Joseph Watson. http://www.infowars.com/uk-riots-government-prepares-troops-martial-law/

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“Basically the news about the killing of Khamis by a NATO air strike are very dirty lies to cover the murder of civilians in the peaceful city,” said government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim on Friday.

A rebel military spokesman said NATO had hit a military operations centre overnight in the western town of Zliten killing 32, including Khamis, a feared military commander.
Overnight there was an aircraft attack by NATO on the Gaddafi operations room in Zliten and there are around 32 Gaddafi troops killed. One of them is Khamis,” said Mohammed Zawawi, a spokesman for revolutionary militias.

Zawawi cited spies operating among Gaddafi’s ranks and intercepted radio chatter as sources.

There was no independent verification of Khamis’s death, which has been rumoured a number of times during Libya’s five month-long civil war.

From the Naples headquarters of NATO’s Libya operations an official confirmed the alliance’s warplanes had hit at least two targets in Zliten overnight, but made no comment about the reports of Khamis’s death.

“We are aware of the news reports,” the official told AFP.

“NATO struck an ammunition storage at around 8:15pm (04:15 Friday AEST) in Zliten and a military police facility within a combat area at around 10.45pm in the area of Zliten yesterday,” he added.

If confirmed, Khamis’s death would be a huge blow to both the regime’s military and the morale of Gaddafi’s inner circle.

The 28-year-old Khamis trained at a Russian military academy and commands the eponymous and much-feared Khamis Brigade - one of the Libyan regime’s toughest fighting units.

© 2011 AFP