As NATO attacks continue in Libya, ex US Congresswoman and former presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney went to the country on a non-governmental fact-finding mission to see what exactly is going on in the war-torn country.

­Cynthia McKinney believes the bombardments of Libyan cities and other measures taken by NATO, causing civilian casualties, represent the idea of “collective punishment”.

“NATO is preventing shipments of fuel, food and medicine to come in. There have been efforts to get medicine into the country that have been denied by NATO. It is impossible to go on any street and miss the huge queues – sometimes three or four deep – that go on and on, as they queue up to get gasoline from the service station,” McKinney says.

McKinney also told RT how universities and other civilian facilities are being bombed by NATO troops.

“I don’t know why NATO is choosing these targets, but these are civilian targets. Whenever you target a civilian population, you’re committing a crime,” she added.

Speaking of why the US has gone to the war in Libya, McKinney recalled how the US government already lied to its citizens and the world about the reasons to go to war in Iraq.

“So now, when our government says that they have a responsibility to bomb people in order to save them, I think it’s important for the American people to understand what the truth is,” she says.

McKinney presented her own idea of why the US is involved in the operation in Libya, quoting Ray McGovern, a retired CIA officer, now a political activist, who has said the US foreign policy is driven by O, I and L, which stand for “oil”, “Israel” and “logistics”. “Logistics”, as explained by McGovern, is the logistics needed by the neo-cons to carry out their policies on behalf of Israel.

“And if we look at the behavior of the NATO allies in Libya, the so-called rebels, what we see is they opened up a Central bank. So that means that the banking system that is independent here will be tied to the international banking system. They also have concluded agreements with Israel. One of those agreements is to provide a base for Israel in Libya,” she maintains.

McKinney also expressed concerns about the reports on the possible use of depleted uranium by NATO.

“If depleted uranium is being used here, then everything we see and breathe is contaminated,” she says.

“If we look at NATO and their use of weaponry, we know that NATO’s used the depleted uranium in Eastern Europe, in Afghanistan. They’re probably using it in Pakistan. Why would they not use it here,” McKinney told RT.