By Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars.com | BMay 31, 2011

Proof that armed western forces are on the ground in Libya advising rebels confirms that the entire legal premise behind the NATO-led intervention has been shattered and the campaign is now a criminal act of warfare that has nothing whatsoever to do with the original justification of protecting civilians.

Video footage of armed westerners on the ground in Libya has been cited as the “first apparent confirmation that foreign special forces are playing an active role in the Libyan conflict,” and yet US, British and French special forces were already on the ground nearly three months ago, weeks before the initial UN resolution, as we reported at the time.

Images taken by Al-Jazeera released yesterday showed a group of six westerners talking to Libyan rebels west of the town of Misrata, confirming that the entire premise behind the United Nations’ ridiculously misnamed “no fly zone” has been eviscerated, and that NATO forces are engaged in direct warfare. All pretenses of “humanitarian aid,” which from the very beginning was a ludicrous hoax, can now be dispensed with.

“A group of six westerners are clearly visible in a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them were armed and wearing sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps, and cotton Arab scarves,” reports the Guardian.

“The sixth, apparently the most senior of the group, was carrying no visible weapon and wore a pink, short-sleeve shirt. He may be an intelligence officer. The group is seen talking to rebels and then quickly leaving on being spotted by the television crew.”

The original UN resolution that imposed a “no fly zone” over Libya, which quickly became a euphemism for constant bombardment, specifically forbade aiding rebel fighters in any way.

In addition, shortly after the US began its involvement, President Barack Obama stated on the record that there would be “absolutely” no boots on the ground.

As Dave Schuler wrote at the time, the resolution “authorizes member states to act as required to prevent harm to Libyan civilians, authorizes the establishment of a no-fly zone in Libyan air space, strengthens the arms embargo against Libya, and strengthens the freeze on Libyan assets in foreign banks.”

“It does not authorize member states to support rebels, defend armed insurgent groups, remove Qaddafi from office, or take steps to prevent Qaddafi’s use of mercenaries.”

However, that’s precisely what NATO and EU forces are now doing, breaking their own legal justification for involvement in Libya, and in the process arming and supporting Al-Qaeda terrorists.

But as we reported at the time, NATO forces didn’t even wait until their meaningless UN resolution was passed before putting boots on the ground in anticipation of the bombardment.

According to a report in the Pakistan Observer, hundreds of special forces personnel from the US, Britain and France arrived on February 23 and 24 in “American and French warships and small naval boats off Libyan ports of Benghazi and Tobruk.”

Their role was to set up bases and training centers for the rebels who were preparing to oust Gaddafi.

Even as Obama promised back in March not to send US troops into another warzone, 2,200 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit were dispatched to Libya.

Furthermore, in April the EU announced that it had rubber stamped an invasion force of ground troops that would be sent into Libya under the cooked up pretense of “humanitarian aid” and empowered to fight if Gaddafi forces threatened to impede their mission to “secure sea and land corridors inside the country,” a clear military purview that had nothing to do with protecting civilians.