"Not This Way"

September 24, 2011
edits Sept. 28

Russia Today not long ago ran an unusual report from Tripoli, actually seeking and speaking to a segment of Tripoli's people who call themselves, in the shadows, a majority. But however many there are and however few are willing to let their faces or names be known, these people hardly get a moment near any Western reporter's microphone in these jubilant days of Libyan democracy and foreign airpower's joint triumph. RT said:

It seems in the last two weeks, rebel fighters have fired more bullets into the air to express their excitement than were shot during the assault on Tripoli earlier in August. But away from "jubilant" crowds we meet those who are not so pleased.

Abdulrakham lives in Tripoli’s Abu Slim district, which has historically been pro-Gaddafi. When the rebels arrived, his sister was badly injured. She is still in hospital in Tunisia.

Abdulrakham does not want to show his face on camera and insists on a hidden location for the interview. He says the revolution has brought much fear in its wake.

“There is no peace. There is no safety in the city. We do not let our children outside when it’s dark. We are afraid. We always wait for something bad,” he tells RT. “When Gaddafi was here, at least we didn’t have to sleep awake, like we do now.”

Abdulrakham says he also wanted change and a brighter future for his country, but not this way.

“People are dying on both sides,” he continues. “The city’s been destroyed – and no one cares! Do they seriously think they changed it for the better? Don’t lie to yourself – just look around! Is this what you wanted?”

Russia Today's reporters also produced this video,"Freedom of Repression."


Back on July 1, after more than three months of the rebel movement's and the "civilized world's" unequivocal demands, something like one in four Libyans stood together on the same day across the country, to say in one loud, green voice "no thank you please!" to NATO's plans for them. The turnout in Tripoli, hosting activists from surrounding cities as well, is said to have been one million (no word from any critics on a better count) standing behind the green flag. This in a country of only sixmillion, riven with a civil war posed as "the people"vs. the isolated regime.

It was said that in these days Gaddafi saluted a miniature NATO flag every morning. Every night, their bombs rocked the capitol, targeting the population's resolve. But it was only wrecking their sleep and starting to piss them off, especially when innocent people (or loyalist soldiers either, for that matter, who were all good guys with families and friends) were massacred by the indifferent and overwhelming brutality of high explosives. As to how Gaddafi could salute their little compass of hate, one young lady explained to Franklin Lamb:

“Our leader does this”, one young lady informed me first with a wide smile and then growing serious, “because the NATO bombing of Libyan civilians, which the US/NATO axis claims Qaddafi is doing, has caused his popularity to skyrocket among our proud and nationalist tribal people. I am one example of this.

Yes, of course we can use some new blood and long overdue reform in our government. Which country cannot? But first we must defeat the NATO invaders and then we can sort out our problems among our tribes including the so-called “NATO Rebels.”

The opinions of these people was never sought before, during, or after the total intervention and regime change air war waged in the name of "the people of Libya." My Youtube friend Miss Libyana's recent video from Tripoli is worth a watch -done with an open heart, it'sboth inspirational and deeply saddening. I don't see coerced, brainwashed people here, but genuine humanity and aspirations the NATO machine is trying its best to crush:


As I advised there, and it sounds good still: Lay low yet stay visible, surrender and yet resist, compromise but unite, remain peaceful and fight like hell, and prevail. It's how you figure out what that means the decides if it gets done or not. Fighting to the last blood? Mmmm, doesn't sound so good now, I hope? I like green Libyans - stay alive.

I'll add that compromise will clearly be needed from both sides now; there is a mammoth gap to bridge before Libya can consider itself even halfway whole again. For starters, I've seen a sentiment aired alongside the green solidarity movement that they would keep fighting, up to killing and dying, "for our OIL." It's their economic lifeblood, you know. So here's an idea to avoid civil war and strife: Don't privatize it and sell it off, at least not until after you've gotten a clear public mandate. If it's true that the NTC early on pledged 33% of all Libyan oil contracts to France, renege. I think that's a French word, so use it against them.

But before any kind of sustainable compromise over the new Libya can take form, they'll first need to get past the point of crippling fear among the loyalists. To the NTC and the new Libyan strongman, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, I have an observation:

Most of us in the "free world," if not those in Tripoli, Benghazi, and Misrata, feel it is ideal that in your "free society," the rights of those who simply disagree with you, aren't happy with being "liberated,"and even torn with compulsion to resist in some way, based on prior heartfelt vows, must be allowed freedom of conscience, and even speech, if not of fighting like your side is allowed to do. The segment of Libya's people who wish the old government was still in charge, be they a vast and frightening majority or a tiny backwards minority, ideally should not have to fear for their lives as uncontrollable mobs roam freely, violating their basic human rights:

- to not have anti-aircraft guns fired at their homes from 30 feet away.
- to ask a rebel fighter to pay for his sandwich without fear he'll open fire on the whole place and kill people.
- to have a green cast on your broken arm without being arrested by thugs who may kill you for it.
- to not have your eye shot out, and your mother and two baby daughters shot dead for having the last name Gaddafi.
- to not be arrested and sent to Misrata to vanish for being a black Tawerghan in Tripoli (see The Fall and Purge of Tawergha).
- to not be summarily executed for being a foreign black man trying to find work, and transparently accused of being an "African mercenary."
- to not have your head chopped off in your hospital bed if you happen to be a black patient in the hospital the rebels want for a morgue for their black victims and another bloody and epic smear against the regime.
- and so on. And we're talking about "Human Rights" in the capitol itself, not the black holes of Bani Walid and Sirte, Sabha, Tawergha, where any scale of NATO/rebel massacre will disappear without a sound...

Mr. Abdel-Jalil, you said you'd resign if your people carried out mindless revenge attacks or refused to heed human rights norms. Your continued stay in office is not convincing as proof these unchecked abuses aren't happening. Resign, or kill yourself, take your pick. I'm fine with either, but clearly you cannot control the monster you and NATO unleashed on a once-peaceful city and nation.

Why Oil Might Be A Factor in the Libyan War

August 15, 2011
last update Sept. 4

In some minds, it's obvious - with the highest oil reserves in all Africa, around 44.3 bbn, Libya is the first African nation singled out by NATO's air forces for regime change, the enforcement of a popular revolution that wasn't popular enough. How could oil not be a factor?

But there is a case to be made that, unlike Iraq for example, American and Western companies were able to drill and make money in Libya's fields, and war wasn't the slightest necessary. This case is frequently made by those who support the war, and even by those who don't. For example, this otherwise strongly critical piece, sidelines the oil motive as a red herring to ignore:

(2) War for Oil or Oil for Sale?

The ‘critical’ Left’s favorite cliché is that the imperial invasion is all about “seizing control of Libya’s oil and turning it over to their multi-nationals”. This is despite the fact that US, French and British multinationals (as well as their Asian competitors) had already “taken over” millions of acres of Libyan oil fields without dropping a single bomb. For the past decade, “Big Oil” had been pumping and exporting Libyan oil and gas and reaping huge profits. Gaddafi welcomed the biggest MNC’s to exploit the oil wealth of Libya from the early 1990’s to the present day. [...] Clearly, with all the European and US imperial countries already exploiting Libya oil on a massive scale, the mantra that the “war is about oil” doesn’t hold water or oil!

As we'll see below, the line "had already “taken over” millions of acres of Libyan oil fields, the most crucial part in my opinion, is in question.

I admit I don't know about all the details in the part I snipped, the companies doing business there with various contracts, some going back to the 1990s. I won't try arguing that some business goes that far back, but from what I gather, the more serious drilling and profits we know of from recent years didn't start until later, around 2003-2004. This was part of the general rapprochement, with Libya paying up for the Lockerbie bombing they never committed, renouncing terrorism real or accused, and pursuing - if slowly - political reforms. In return, UN sanctions were ended, diplomatic relations were briefly possible, and there was an opening of the oil sector to outside profits. It didn't all have to go to Libya's people anymore.

Everyone remembers the BP lobbying to send "Lockerbie bomber" al-Megrahi home in order to keep the Libyans happy and secure off-shore exploration rights. Everyone remembers the flak they took last year, on top of their gulf oil spill disaster, when Mr. Megrahi did not die (or resurrect his appeal) within three months. They were despoiling nature AND making money in shady deals that freed terrorists, and people didn't like it.

Well, the companies didn't like that. How could they be happy with the bind dealing with Gaddafi's regime put them in? It was the only way to get at the oil, working with the internationally recognized government - and was losing vogue for some reason well before the war broke out.
the final straw, as Susan Lindauer noted in a worthwhile article, a development I can't otherwise verify but that makes enough sense I'll offer it for consideration.

About July, I started hearing that Gadhaffi was exerting heavy pressure on U.S. and British oil companies to cough up special fees and kick backs to cover the costs of Libya’s reimbursement to the families of Pan Am 103. Payment of damages for the Lockerbie bombing had been one of the chief conditions for ending U.N. sanctions on Libya that ran from 1992 until 2003. And of course the United Nations forced Gadhaffi to hand over two Libyan men for a special trial at The Hague, though everybody credible was fully conscious of Libya’s innocence in the Lockerbie affair. (Only ignorant politicians trying to score publicity points say otherwise.)

Knowing Gadhaffi as well as I do, I was convinced that he’d done it. He’d bided his time until he could extort compensation from U.S. oil companies. He’s a crafty bastard, extremely intelligent and canny. That’s exactly how he operates.
[...]
Last October, US oil giants— Chevron and Occidental Petroleum— made a surprising decision to pull out of Libya, while China, Germany and Italy stayed on, signing major contracts with Gadhaffi’s government.

Were they walking away from the oil, or from the regime atop of it? If the latter, how long did they plan to be away?

If the United States was waiting for a switchover, they knew when it happened, and it was almost automatic. The violent revolt started Feb 16, more or less, and nearly half the nation's cities and military equipment was in rebel hands by Feb  21 or so. On February 21, the Deputy ambassador to the UN decided to steal his post and hand it over to the unformed new government. Somehow his boss, the ambassador, and the rest of their staff, agreed, and somehow the US and the UN at large let them, encouraged them, and gave them hugs.

At the level of diplomatic recognition, Libya had just suffered a coup, its diplomats ecognized as representatives of "the Libyan people" as opposed to its (old) government that appointed them, soon asking someone to bomb their old bosses into history. The leaders of the emergent rebel council were primarily US and UK-educated "free market" activists. Recognized in a flash, in spirit if not on paper.

Only the problem of the reality inside Libya stood in the way, and thus we've had five months of increasingly intense bombing of Libya's cities to make that fit the cartoonish notions we formed in February.

Anyway, the oil hasn't started flowing yet, and that's been affecting the world economy. From there, I'd like to pass on a conversation I had at the JREF forum, on "Gaddafi's Useful Idiots," started by member Virus, owned by me. This conversation with member McHrozni was a sidetrack there. Lindauer's word would never play at the JREF, so I cited instead the Wall Street Journal.
---
Virus: How much oil has NATO stolen so far?

Caustic Logic: I never used the word steal, and it's only half-appropriate. "NATO" doesn't put it in a bag and walk away. But they serve the interests of theire home governments, who serve the interests of their oil companies.

Obviously the oil stays in the ground - of a country - with a leadership that decides the terms under which it's extracted. That's the part that's pretty well decided will change, and one of the few things the top rebel TNC leaders have in common is a known speciality in free-market economics, privatization, hostile takeovers, etc., earned in the US and UK mostly.

But why regime change? See below...

theprestige: If oil were a factor, why not quietly stay out of it? How has prolonging the conflict and reducing the chances of a decisive conclusion improved the belligerents' access to Libyan oil, either now or in the future?

Caustic Logic: In the short term, it's driven prices up, which helps some but hurts economies in short and mid-term, etc. (as I gather). So they take a hit, tap into the reserves to ease the pain. Why? Is there some big gain to offset it?

Yes. The main point is questioning the bolded part. To keep access like the West has had, in experimental form since 2003, indeed no disruption would be easiest. But it's more than just access itself, it's the quantity, quality, nature, and context of that access that also factor in. These are big reserves we're talking about, close, potentially important, and every downside is multiplied by that scale.

What are the problems? Perception of working with or abetting a dictatorial and terrorist regime. Being forced (or attempted to be) by Tripoli to give a cut back to cover their expenses settling the Lockerbie case. That's context. The more important economic factors, per the Wall Street Journal ("no love lost")

"Libya has gone from the world's most exciting oil-exploration hot spot in 2005 to another geologically, politically and fiscally risky also-ran," says Charles Gurdon , a North Africa expert at Menas Associates, a consultancy.

[...]

Libya kept its crown jewels off limits to foreigners. The huge onshore oil fields that accounted for the bulk of its production remained the preserve of Libya's state companies. Yet without advanced foreign technology to improve oil-recovery rates, output at these big fields gradually declined, by as much as 6% a year in some cases.

[...]

Politics continually intruded, particularly in 2009, the year the Scottish authorities released Abdel Baset al-Megrahi , the Libyan imprisoned for his role in the bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, on compassionate grounds. The Canadian government expressed disapproval at the hero's welcome Mr. Megrahi received on his return to Tripoli. Shortly afterward, Libya told Petro-Canada, a Canadian company, to halve production from its Libyan fields. Libya said the reduction was needed to make sure Libya was in compliance with OPEC quotas. But other companies weren't targeted, analysts say.

[...]

Gradually, foreign oil companies' interest in Libya faded. When Libya offered them the right to bid on exploration tracts in December 2007, half of the blocks attracted no bids.

A clutch of companies left Libya as their five-year exploration licenses began to expire, among them Chevron Corp., BG Group PLC and Australia's Woodside Petroleum Ltd.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/for...bya-2011-04-14

The bolded are among the things you can expect look to change under the new government. Not that it's a motive for war, or a motive to be too trusting of flawed rebel reports that take us there. It's just a predictable and very positive side-effect.

And lest anyone say it must be about more than oil, of course it is. There's also water privatization (GMMR), nipping pan-Africanism and keeping the continent safe for AFRICOM, privatizing the massive state services currently (or 'til recently) enjoyed by most Libyans, opening up the state-owned and debt-free central bank (assets frozen by western powers, controlled by the freezors), and perhaps most important setting an example for other would-be challengers of Western hegemony.

McHrozni: If the west was after easy oil, aiding Quackdaffi would be the most prudent course of action. Why wasn't that pursued? Please come up with something plausible and specific.


Caustic Logic: I did. See above. He was keeping too much back for the people of Libya, refusing access to most of it, tossing out strange terms they weren't happy with, and companies were giving up and leaving. They'll get interested again as soon he's gone.


That "oil interests would have us do nothing" canard is getting real old and thin, but everyone seems to buy it anyway. Anything to convince oneself there logically cannot be any ulterior motives here, in the one alleged gov't massacre of 2011 we're hell-bent on punishing to oblivion...

McHrozni: If I add a condition that the explanation must not be based on fiction, will you see that as moving goal posts?

Caustic Logic: On top of completely missing the explanation when asking for an explanation, I would consider that silly move akin to trying to hide the goal posts under a paper napkin. Do you have any proof Mr. Chazan's article, published in the Wall Street Journal April 15, is a work of fiction?

McHrozni:

"Libya has gone from the world's most exciting oil-exploration hot spot in 2005 to another geologically, politically and fiscally risky also-ran," says Charles Gurdon, a North Africa expert at Menas Associates, a consultancy.

It seems to me that the Arab spring damaged oil interests to a considerable degree.

Caustic Logic: No, the problems cited were unfolding in 2008 and so, not after the Arab Spring.

McHrozni: I'm not buying the subscription to get the article. Why don't you cite something I can get for free? If it was obvious it should be everywhere, no?

Caustic Logic: The link I gave to a re-posting that's available for free. That's why I used that instead of a verifiably primary source. It's a small gamble that's usually worth it. Either way, do you have any evidence that the article is fiction-based? Is the growing rift between Tripoli and big oil that preceded the civil war made-up nonsense, or does Chazan maybe have a point? Just how big the point is is another issue - first, is it even a valid observation?

If not, why not?

McHrozni: I didn't see it then, can you re-post it please?

Caustic Logic:It was post 128. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/for...bya-2011-04-14

McHrozni: Thanks. Indeed, telling.

At the same time, companies that had made such expensive commitments in Libya'sEPSA-IV licensing rounds were facing a big problem: there was little oil. Firms drilled nearly 600 wells in Libya from 2006 to 2009 and made just 27 oil discoveries, mostly small, according todata from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

While probably not based on fiction, it's also a fact that the article clearly states that Quackdaffi and his quacky state was only part of the problem.

Caustic Logic: I predicted you would do that - that article is full of facts that point one way and characterizations that point another. Now go back and look at where they were allowed to drill and not allowed. Is this an example of Gaddafi's system limiting foreign oil companies, in such a way as might be fixed with regime change, or is Libya almost out of oil, to the point where no one cares?

Or was I misreading the counter-point? If Gaddafi's only part of the problem, what in your mind is the remainder, or the large part you think you've identified? Low oil reserves, poor drilling techniques, what?

McHrozni: A bit of both. Libya certainly isn't as full of oil as some suggest, and Quackdaffi is, well, Quackdaffi and abuses what power he has for his own good. Certainly bad, but also quite certainly not worthy of a military intervention - especially not worthy of one where you'll have little say about what happens in the country after your side wins.

You were implyingthat the intervention happened because of oil interests, right?

Caustic Logic:

A bit of both. Libya certainly isn't as full of oil as some suggest,

Not to argue further down this side-track, but you haven't shown that and I still suspect oil bulk IS there as always and IS therefore a factor one can't help considering if one considers the factors at stake.

You were implyingthat the intervention happened because of oil interests, right?

In part only, I should think. I agree a gripe like that is no cause for war, or at least not strong enough a one to have pushed near as hard as they have. I'd guess that it would go into a mix of considerations.

There are a host of other issues, economic, political, geo-strategic, by which the overall mood towards Libya would be measured. Would we mind if it fell under a bus? Should we give a little shove, a big shove?

McHrozni:

Not to argue further down this side-track, but you haven't shown that and I still suspect oil bulk IS there as always and IS therefore a factor one can't help considering if one considers the factors at stake.

Believe what you want, it's a free medium.

There are a host of other issues, economic, political, geo-strategic, by which the overall mood towards Libya would be measured. Would we mind if it fell under a bus? Should we give a little shove, a big shove?

If oil interests were crucial, a big shove would be called for, to ensure the control of the interests. This isn't what happened.
---

And I was happy to leave it there. McHrozni can believe we aren't really shoving to topple the government in favor of a specific replacement. And if we were, it wouldn't be about oil, since we were already doing fine drilling there, until this war started for noble reasons and stopped the insane profits. And the oil was running out anyway, or something. I can agree to disagree with that, and even let him have the last word.
---
Update Sept. 4: Glenn Greenwald, a strangely perceptive and incisive commentator for being American, had this same line of thought under control back in June at Salon. "In a pure coincidence, Gaddafi impeded U.S. oil interests before the war." Actually, the meat of that is a separate, highly-quoted article from the Washington Post, which said in part:

even before armed conflict drove the U.S. companies out of Libya this year, their relations with Gaddafi had soured. The Libyan leader demanded tough contract terms. He sought big bonus payments up front. Moreover, upset that he was not getting more U.S. government respect and recognition for his earlier concessions, he pressured the oil companies to influence U.S. policies.
[...]
By November 2007, a State Department cable noted "growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism." It noted that in his 2006 speech marking the founding of his regime, Gaddafi said: "Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them. Now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money." His son made similar remarks in 2007.
[...]
Yet when representatives of the rebel coalition in Benghazi spoke to the U.S.-Libya Business Council in Washington four weeks ago, representatives from ConocoPhillips and other oil firms attended, according to Richard Mintz, a public relations expert at the Harbour Group, which represents the Benghazi coalition. In another meeting in Washington, Ali Tarhouni, the lead economic policymaker in Benghazi, said oil contracts would be honored, Mintz said.

"Now you can figure out who’s going to win, and the name is not Gaddafi," Saleri said. "Certain things about the mosaic are taking shape. The Western companies are positioning themselves."

"Five years from now," he added, "Libyan production is going to be higher than right now and investments are going to come in."

Russia "Fires" Gaddafi, MIGHT Be Able To Help Save Libya

May 29/30 2011

It appears now that the Libyan government has lost its most powerful, if rather half-hearted, defender on the world stage: the mighty Russian Federation. It was at the G8 summit in France, of all places, where turnaround seems to have happened.

US President Obama used the event to, as Jonathan Steele put it in The Guardian, "abandon his public caution and make it clear that regime change is now the western objective in Libya." Russia started out by heightening their opposition to that into the following unprecedented, but still muted, criticism:

Russia’s ambassador to France, Alexander Orlov, told The Associated Press that the NATO campaign has gone too far. As a result, he said, Russia feels "burned" and doesn’t want to support a U.N. resolution warning Syria about its crackdown on anti-government protesters.  "We will be very careful," he said in an interview at Deauville. [source]

By the end of the conference, they agreed with the other leaders that, however it happened, Gaddafi had in fact "lost legitimacy" and must step down. And they're taking the lead in talks to makeit happen, if possible. I'm still parsing this, but I'd venture that the Russians' thinking to that end seems more mechanistic and based on cold reality than the pseudo-moralistic and free-floating proclamations of their belligerent counterparts in the NATO bloc. There's room for something interesting here, as well as for more predictable failure.

Russia 'Fires' Qaddafi
By Elizabeth Surnacheva
Gazeta, Russia
Translated By Yekaterina Blinova
May 27, 2011
http://worldmeets.us/ http://worldmeets.us/gazetaru000026.shtml#ixzz1Nhpd2JHI

As a result of the G8 summit in Deauville, it has fallen on Russia to resolve the problem of Muammar Qaddafi. Dmitry Medvedev said he supported the desire of Western countries to remove the Libyan leader and has sent his special envoy to Benghazi for negotiations.

In French Deauville, one of the busiest G8 summits in terms of agreements has come to an end. The final statement took up 25 pages. But the key agreement turned out to be one on Libya. The Kremlin, which spoke skeptically at first about the operation in that country, has finally agreed with the West that the Jamahiriya political regime must be changed.

Russia has been the most powerful (if not the most incisive) critic of NATO's deceptive regime change campaign in Libya. But here, even Russia's elites have finally joined the pod people it seems, in the apparent global consensus (among white, northern elites) that can turn any twisted notion into the accepted truth.

This is, however, the first time I'm aware of where it was openly specified that the whole governmental and economic system ("the Jamahiriya political regime") must be changed, beyond the simple "departure" of Gaddafi and his sons that has been demanded. That's potentially interesting. I've suspected from the outset that was the real target, and the relevant gripes against the Jamahiriya pre-date by far any 2011 atrocities. Surnacheva continues to the summit's final, bold, and rather philosophical conclusions:

The unified position on Libya was recorded in the final declaration. The leaders of Group of Eight stated that Muammar Qaddafi has lost his right to govern.

The document notes that the Libyan government was unable to fulfill its duty to protect the population of its country, and has lost its legitimacy. "Qaddafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go," says the document. Russia backed the statement and at the request of its partners, has sent its envoy.

The government has lost its ability "to protect the Libyan population." Indeed, something about not being allowed to shoot its own guns, spend its own money, or do anything, really, has hampered Libya's ability to protect its people from the rebel uprising and its racist, terrorist actions. Nor by a mile can they prevent the relentless bombs of the rebellion's NATO benefactors. Now that these things are fact, obviously, he can't govern the country he sort-of built, and he must ... I dunno, go somewhere else.

The president announced at the conclusion of the summit that he was sending Mikhail Margelov to Benghazi. Medvedev said, “I have decided to dispatch my special envoy to Africa, Mr. Margelov. He is flying out to Libya immediately.” According to the Russian leader, if the colonel steps down voluntarily, “then we can discuss how to go about it, what country might take him in, on what terms, what he can keep and what he must lose.” Medvedev said that Russia would not be the country that takes Qaddafi. According to the president, the global community no longer sees Qaddafi as the recognized leader of Libya.

Keep? The government, the whole system, just as illegitimate as HE is? HE will have to leave, and what? Keep the system, take it with him? What do the people get to keep, IN LIBYA? (more on the trade-offs here)

Russia said May 27 it’s seeking to negotiate Qaddafi’s departure, for the first time supporting the goals of the military campaign led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 

Qaddafi has forfeited his right to govern and Russia is using its contacts with the Libyan regime to persuade him to step down, President Dmitry Medvedev said in Deauville, France, after a Group of Eight summit.

Fact is, right or wrong, it's happening. May as well cash in, right? Might score a few brownie points with the new management, which NATO member France selected late last year. And they can use the brownie points; the upstarts have been less than favorable to Moscow in the past. For even abstaining from the vote on a "no-fly zone" (no govern zone, really) at the UNSC, they were told they'd get no oil contracts in Libya, ever.

AFP - A former top minister in Moamer Kadhafi's regime who has fled to Europe in a fishing trawler told AFP in an interview that he believes China and Russia have "lost" the race for oil in Libya. "Kadhafi has no future now," said Fathi Ben Shatwan, a former Kadhafi ally whose last government post was as energy minister and who made a dramatic escape from the besieged city of Misrata under fire from government troops.
[...]
"The new democracy will deal very well with the people who helped us" including with oil sector rewards for Italy and France, which have officially recognised the opposition interim national council in Benghazi. "Russia and China lost. They shouldn't have done this," he said, referring to the abstention of Moscow and Beijing from a UN Security Council vote that authorised military intervention by international powers in Libya.

He dismissed Kadhafi's threats to grant oil contracts to Russia and China as "a sort of game" by a desperate man.

http://www.france24.com/en/20110407-china-russia-have-lost-oil-race-libya-ex-minister

A game perhaps, but Gaddafi's team has been outplayed here by mr. Shatwan's. Now that Russia has turned around some to their own number one sticking point, the rebel attitude has followed. Surnacheva continues:

In Benghazi, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of Libya’s Interim Transitional National Council, welcomed the Russian offer. “Free Libya is looking forward to building and strengthening its relations with the Russian Federation,” he said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

He also expressed interest in discussing a cease-fire under anyone's leadership, so long as the Gaddafis first just went away somewhere. It's hoped the whole government would then collapse, which it might, having failed to create a strong enough identity of its own (despite some trying).

All this said, agreeing against Gaddafi does give the Russians something they haven't had yet - a currency, if token, with the NATO bloc and "the world community." And their recent forays into a negotiated solution do, to me, show at least glimmers of the basic world sanity entirely lacking in NATO's our-way-by-all-means approach.

Russia's new activism on Libya
Vladimir RadyuhinThe Hindu, May 26

Ahead of the G8 summit in France on May 26-27, Russia has stepped up diplomatic activity in the Arab world in an effort to recapture the initiative it lost to the West in the recent turmoil in the region.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier this week met in Moscow with a delegation of the Libyan opposition led by former Libyan Foreign Minister Abdurraham Muhamed Shalgham. The meeting took place less than a week after representatives of the Libyan government and the special UN Secretary General's envoy for Libya Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib visited Moscow.

Mr. Lavrov said Moscow's main goal in engaging the two warring sides was “to promote an immediate end to the bloodshed, to the military activities.”

“It is important at this stage to help define the participants in future talks… that would represent the interests of all political forces [and] all tribes in Libya,” Mr. Lavrov said adding that a concrete list should be the result of an “all-Libya consensus.”

The bolded parts are those NATO and the rebels are dead-set against. A peaceful, non-pressured, democratic approach in Libya will not produce the desired outcome. And that, in turn, would deflate their illusions about what the people of Libya really want. But this is the right place to look and the right way to do it, whether Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron like it or not. What this means next to the announcement Medvedev signed just after is unclear at the moment, but hopefully something positive can come of this turn as far as saving the best of the revolution, rather than the none of it currently planned.

Sorry, Col. Gaddafi, Libyans who love him ... there are no ways forward, barring miracles, that will be easy. Something big must give. Even the Russians, and even I, can see this. It's not right, but it's real.  Think on that long and hard. If there's one thing you seem really bad at, it's being realistic. Get better quick, my advice.

Libyan War Damages the Global Economy

May 22 2011

Via the Christian Science Monitor
Libya intervention damages global economy - CSMonitor.com
By Stefan Karlsson, Guest blogger / April 4, 2011

As I expected (to the extent I was wrong, it was because I underestimated how bad it would be), the intervention in Libya increasingly seems to create a worst case scenario where Qadaffi remains in control over western Libya while jihadist rebels are in control over eastern Libya and where the two sides continue to fight in an endless civil war.

In addition to being clueless about the nature of the rebels, the axis of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy naively thought that they could destroy the Qadaffi regime through air raids alone. Yet as the Qadaffi forces have begun to disguise themselves to look like the rebels, it becomes exceedingly difficult for bombers to bomb them without risking to bomb the rebels. (something that they have already mistakingly done).

This means that the Libyan civil war, which would likely have ended two weeks ago without the intervention, could go on for a very long time. This means that oil prices will remain high, something that will benefit a few oil exporting countries, but greatly damage oil importers and damage the world economy as a whole.

With oil (WTI) reaching $108 today, it is about 30% higher than when the civil war started in mid-February. While other factors like QE2 could have contributed to this continued increase, other factors such as the disaster in Japan have counteracted the increase, so it is not far fetched to attribute almost the entire increase to the Libyan civil war.

A short-term spike would have only created limited damage to the world economy, but the longer this persists the worse will the global economy be damaged. The half-measure policy pursued by the Obama-Cameron-Sarkozy axis has already prolonged it by two weeks. While it can't be ruled out that somehow the civil war will be quickly ended, it looks increasingly likely to be prolonged, to the detriment of the global economy.

Desperate for Recognition / Gambia?

May 24 2011
last edits June 3 2011

Desperation in Action
It seems the pathetic puppets of the Libyan rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) are craving recognition; that is, as the legitimate government of all Libya. They're still outnumbered on the ground, in Libya, by people who reject their insane rebellion. And they still lack the official nod from the mighty US and the UK, for somewhat murky reasons, but have had for some time now that honor from a triad of large-ish players - France, Italy, and Qatar, plus a few later additions.

Perhaps hoping to start a fad out of it, the TNC has been caught stretching the truth a little as to who else was willing to call NATO's ragtag, "outunmbered" foot soldiers "the government of Libya."
Radio Australia News, May 6

Several countries have denied claims they have recognised a rebel council as the valid government of Libya.

Rebels in Benghazi have claimed that Canada, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands have become the latest states to recognise the council, which was set up to rival the regime of Colonel Moammar Gadaffi.

However three of those governments - Spain, Canada and the Netherlands - have denied the rebels' claims.

Denmark had also denied it, in a perfect four-for-four fail. Reuters, May 5

Denmark denied on Thursday that it had officially recognized Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) of rebels, but said it did recognize the organization as a relevant partner for dialogue.

That's not how it was supposed to work. They were supposed to be so inspired the rebels' proud proclamation to go ahead and confirm the allegation by recognizing the TNC. That it failed is a somewhat bad sign for them, and something they obviously should not have tried.

The Ones Not Joined: The Triad
those who do recognize the rebels as the legitimate arbiters of Libya's future are a telling lot with each their own unstated true motives. There are six total, last I heard, and we should start with the main and original three, France, Qatar, and Italy.

France was the visionary leader in proclaiming the future of Libya. Little surprise, given they hosted a defector from late 2010 who reportedly helped France link up with and assist coup plotters at home. This was apparently sewn into the planned February protests, which did instantly turn to a suprisingly effective military campaign to take over the whole country. After this happened, the French were the first to recognize the rebels, and loudest in promoting and carrying out high-tech air support for their advance to Tripoli. They were reportedly promised a third of all Libyan oil contracts around the same time they started this little club.

The Persian Gulf Island state of Qatar is an authoritarian capitalist Islamic petro-kingdom, not unlike Bahrain where the US has given a nod to a repression of protesters worse than anything Gaddafi's forces actually did. Qatar was, I believe, the second nation to join France's club and recognizing the rebels. Qatar is reportedly helping manage the first of Eastern Libya's oil exports, and they've hosted both a top-level meeting on Libya's future, and their top defector, Moussa Koussa. This reviled but apparently immune foreign minister and longtime regime villain is reportedly, from Qatar, helping NATO identify buildings to bomb in the hopes of killing Gaddafi. Er, taking out command and control.

Qatar has also helped all along with, at the very least, the Qatari-owned Arab news juggernaut al Jazeera. The network's coverage of this uprising has been notably irresponsible and alarmist, especially at first when it mattered most and helped fuel the chaos Qatar is now profiting from.

Italy was I think the third to join, but as I recall, had been the first in all the world to declare Gaddafi's government non-existent. This really cuts more to the chase, doesn't it? Thay have a history in Libya too deep for me to touch yet, a huge current dependence on their oil, and so on. They also, it's said, have a lot to lose, many outstanding arrangements, but these were cut off with the early decision to erase the old regime. It's only the later decision to directly support the rebels, with diplomatically and militarily, that has caused problems selling the idea at home under Berlusconi's shaky leadership. A more robust involvement in line with France and Qatar, or the US and UK for that matter, is thus unlikely to come from Italy.

The Other Three
As for who else has joined the original three, I've seen two versions, but I'm going with the latter.
RadioAustralia:

France, Italy, Qatar and Ghana have already recognised the National Transitional Council, which is based in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

China Daily, May 4

So far six countries -- France, Italy, Qatar, Maldives, Kuwait and The Gambia -- have officially recognized the rebels' "lawful status" in Libya.

Both Ghana and Gambia are in sub-Saharan, western Africa. Either would be an odd choice, odd enough to consider the one I find better supported, Gambia, seperately below. Maldives, a nation of tiny islands south of India - I have no insights on their reasons. Sorry.

Kuwait, however, is another Gulf state like Qatar and Bahrain. It has no appetite for its own protesters, but Gaddafi's they seem to be lapping at. They have probably the same interests in oil as Qatar, and likely some plans to promote their best ideas of Islam in Libya, or whatever.

And, as the originators of the war-enabling Iraqi army baby incubators story, Kuwait's royals have to be quite impressed with one aspect of this war. A legion of impersonators of that scripted PR episode has been flowing from the rebel side in an unprecedented info war (snipers shooting kids, mass rapes by Afro-mercs on viagra, targetting the faithful at the mosque on a Friday, chemical warfare plans, etc.)

Gambia Recognizes the Rebels?
But I see no obvious reason for sub-Saharan Africans to support the rebels, and a few decent reasons for them to specifically support Gaddafi. (At least ideologically, if not in practice). To join this small club usually takes some solid interest and a little bit of risk on the world stage.

Gaddafi's pan-African vision, and generous aid to help the continent develop and, eventualy, unify, are popular in countries like Ghana and Gambia. Both are cited (Ghana perhaps in error) as recognizing the rebels, who hate Gaddafi's pan-African vision, and represent some nasty racists who - at least briefly - hated black Africans enough to kill probably hundreds. And they captured many more, nearly universally for the crime of "African mercenary."(side-note: an okay article from Gambia on the "mercenaries" allegations)


Gambia, or The Gambia, a tiny nation that's mostly a river on the western apex of Africa, is not a natural addition to the club. What interest do they have in creating the new Libya? All I'm aware of in particular linking the two countries is a number of foreign workers in Libya captured by rebels. One with an interesting story hailed from Gambia before being arrested, and then shown to Western journalists, as a foreign Gaddafi-paid mercenary. LA Times, March 23 related his account after he suddenly spoke up out of turn:

"I am a worker, not a fighter. They took me from my house and [raped] my wife," he said, gesturing with his hands. Before he could say much more, a pair of guards told him to shut up and hustled him through the steel doors of a cell block, which quickly slammed behind them.

Several reporters protested and the man was eventually brought back out. He spoke in broken, heavily accented English and it was hard to hear and understand him amid the scrum of scribes pushing closer. He said his name was Alfusainey Kambi, and again professed innocence before being confronted by an opposition official, who produced two Gambian passports. One was old and tattered and the other new. And for some reason, the official said the documents were proof positive that Kambi was a Kadafi operative.
[...]
[O]ur interpreter, a Libyan national, asked [LA Times reported David] Zucchino: "So what do you think? Should we just go ahead and kill them?"

Even when the charges are clearly unsafe, there's a possible motive for the rebel captors in such cases to stubbornly insist their wards are in fact criminal mercenaries. Guilty until proven innocent has always been the standard against Gaddafi, and the rebels know this. Those familiar with the US justice system know similar attitudes all too easily stick to people of color, and deep-east Libya seems to have the same problem.

This allows them to hold people, who want to go home and have homes that want them. That could, to a shrewd and unethical mind, present an opportunity - bargain the return of these men "guilty, er, possibly guilty of very serious crimes, punishable by death in our laws," in exchange for, "oh, say ... diplomatic recognition?"

A Precedent? The Southern Tribes
Other captured Afro-mercs, 157 of them taken en masse in and near al-Baida, were seen by an official from Human Rights Watch in early March. He found they were partly southern, black-skinned Libyans of long-native tribes, and partly Libyan dual-nationals from elsewhere in Africa. None were foreign mercenaries as claimed by the rebels. All were reportedly released, but we can't really be sure that was done without any strings attached.

The recent tribal council of May, in Tripoli, was criticized mainly for not haing all the tribes represented there.  Richard Boudreaux, Wall Street Journal:

Absent were eastern tribes and western Berber tribes, which have been hostile to the Col. Gadhafi during his four decades of rule, and tribes from the south that have sought to remain neutral in the 11-week-old uprising.

Most information I see suggests these tribes would and usually do support Gaddafi. They haven't formally embraced the rebels, but have for some reason chosen to sit things out, lessening the tribal array against NATO's upstarts. What is it about the rebels that gives them such a magic touch with their darker-skinned neighbors in and around Libya - this African country they're taking over for the Gulf Arabs and the Euro-Americans?

Material Motives

Posted April 27 2011
last edits May 18

Could it be? A war claimed to be fought for purely moral reasons, actually motivated by, at base level, economic concerns? We're there to "prevent a bloodbath," then to stop all government attacks on "civilian targets" (rebel-held, secessionist cities), responding to atrocities in the east - real or reported - with attacks in Tripoli, and providing tactical air support to rebel advances. This all steadily and predictably (to some) is shifting towards regime change and perhaps the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi as the only "acceptable" solution.

Of course, the nation's economy will have to be re-jiggered, as a side effect, once the colonel's green machine has been scrapped...

The following will be expanded, re-organized, and split-up with links until it's the best possible not-too-huge resource to understand what these side effects might entail. I'm putting it up partly empty, and invite   submission, via comments, of further motive categories and quotes/links to fill in beneath them.

John Pilger, April 6:

The Euro-American attack on Libya has nothing to do with protecting anyone; only the terminally naive believe such nonsense. It is the West’s response to popular uprisings in strategic, resource-rich regions of the world and the beginning of a war of attrition against the new imperial rival, China.
[...]
There is a civil and tribal war in Libya, which includes popular outrage against Gaddafi’s human rights record. However, it is Libya’s independence, not the nature of its regime, that is intolerable to the west in a region of vassals; and this hostility has barely changed in the 42 years since Gaddafi overthrew the feudal king Idris, one the more odious tyrants backed by the west.

http://www.johnpilger.com/articles/david-cameron-s-gift-of-war-and-racism-to-them-and-us

Oil, obviously ...
Libya is has the largest oil reserves in Africa. The U.S. Energey Information Administration cites 44.3 billion barrels proven reserves, as of 2010 (the next up: Nigeria at 37.2 and Algeria at 12.2 bbl)
http://ei-01.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Libya/Oil.html
Libya's state-run oil companies have generally excluded Western corporations, and external economic sanctions have both hampered full exploitation of oil in the 1990s. Only in 2003 did Libya's oil fields open up to some corporate involvement. This era, and BP's famous off-shore exploration deal linked in the media with their Gulf of Mexico spill and the release of "Lockerbie Bomber" al-Megrahi, has come to symbolize Libya's purported openness to Western greed. It has led many to believe there is no problem getting at Libya's oil as things stood.

However, the last two or three years had seen gradual pull-out of many of these companies in the face of unpopular limitations and terms. A regime change might just change those problems. Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, April 14:

"Libya has gone from the world's most exciting oil-exploration hot spot in 2005 to another geologically, politically and fiscally risky also-ran," says Charles Gurdon , a North Africa expert at Menas Associates, a consultancy.
[...]
Libya kept its crown jewels off limits to foreigners. The huge onshore oil fields that accounted for the bulk of its production remained the preserve of Libya's state companies. Yet without advanced foreign technology to improve oil-recovery rates, output at these big fields gradually declined, by as much as 6% a year in some cases.
[...]
Politics continually intruded, particularly in 2009, the year the Scottish authorities released Abdel Baset al-Megrahi , the Libyan imprisoned for his role in the bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, on compassionate grounds. The Canadian government expressed disapproval at the hero's welcome Mr. Megrahi received on his return to Tripoli. Shortly afterward, Libya told Petro-Canada, a Canadian company, to halve production from its Libyan fields. Libya said the reduction was needed to make sure Libya was in compliance with OPEC quotas. But other companies weren't targeted, analysts say.
[...]
Gradually, foreign oil companies' interest in Libya faded. When Libya offered them the right to bid on exploration tracts in December 2007, half of the blocks attracted no bids.

A clutch of companies left Libya as their five-year exploration licenses began to expire, among them Chevron Corp., BG Group PLC and Australia's Woodside Petroleum Ltd.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/for-wests-oil-firms-no-love-lost-in-libya-2011-04-14

Susan Lindauer, March 28:

Last October, US oil giants— Chevron and Occidental Petroleum— made a surprising decision to pull out of Libya, while China, Germany and Italy stayed on, signing major contracts with Gadhaffi’s government.
[...]
About July, I started hearing that Gadhaffi was exerting heavy pressure on U.S. and British oil companies to cough up special fees and kick backs to cover the costs of Libya’s reimbursement to the families of Pan Am 103. Payment of damages for the Lockerbie bombing had been one of the chief conditions for ending U.N. sanctions on Libya that ran from 1992 until 2003.
[...]
Knowing Gadhaffi as well as I do, I was convinced that he’d done it. He’d bided his time until he could extort compensation from U.S. oil companies. He’s a crafty bastard, extremely intelligent and canny. That’s exactly how he operates. And now he was taking his revenge. As expected, the U.S. was hopping mad about it. Gadhaffi wasn’t playing the game the way the Oil Bloodsuckers wanted.

http://news-now.org/2011/04/susan-lindauer-libya’s-blood-oil-vampire-war/

Some have suggested Qatar's reward for its fervent support of the rebel cause will be control and develop Libya's oil system - they were given supervision of the first exports, for starters.
Azerbaijan Business Center:
http://abc.az/eng/news/52557.html

Banking.
Libya has a 100% state-owned central bank, funded with nationalized oil, and with zero IMF debt. This will almost certainly change if/when the folks described below take over.

General Economic Restructuring: Privatization and "Free Markets"
See the post Libya's Free Market Future.
Vijay Prashad:

The Benghazi council chose as its leader the colorless former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil. Jalil's brain is Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of the National Economic Development Board (NEDB). A U.S. embassy cable from May 11, 2009 (09TRIPOLI386) describes Jibril as keen on a close relationship with the U.S. and eager "to create a strategic partnership between private companies and the government." Jibril's NEBD had collaborated with Ernst & Young and the Oxford Group to make the Libyan state more "efficient." Jibril told the ambassador that "American companies and universities are welcome to join him" in the creation of new sectors outside hydrocarbons and that "we should take him up on his offer." His Ph.D. in strategic planning from the University of Pittsburg is useful in this context.

A 1994 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) discussion entitled “Post-Qaddafi Libya: The Prospect and The Promise, featured one Dr Ali Tarhouni, Libyan expat in America, professor in Seattle, who stated at the conference, “with privatization, entrepreneurs will reach out and get involved in regional cooperation by searching for markets.” [source] Now 17 years later he's back in Libya on invite to be the Transitional National Council's minister of finance, oil and economics. He recently ventured back to Washington DC to lobby for a chunk of the $30 billion-plus of the Libyan peoples' money stolen/frozen by the Obama administration, ideally, to dole out as it sees fit. Dr. Tarhouni said:

“We’re faced with the same sanctions as Gadhafi,” he said, referring to U.S. sanctions that have frozen more than $34 billion of Libyan government assets, in addition to U.N. and European sanctions. “I don’t have access to any foreign exchange to cover any purchases, open lines of credits to merchants, so that’s a very challenging aspect to what I do.” [source]

This ultimately pro-Wall Street angle is a consistent feature of the rebel TNC leadership, and probably the one that makes them so attractive to the Western elites who decided at the outset to support them, despite professing "little knowledge" of who the rebels really were... As I said in the Free Market Future article:

The handy thing is how many talking heads and think-tank experts there are to back these guys up. "Of course privatization is the answer! Gaddafi was against it and he was evil! Had mercenaries on Viagra rape kids! Just look at the state Libya was in before under Gaddafi's Green Book sytem!" Indeed, take a look - ask for specifics. Environmentally speaking, do we need more bio-diversity, or more monoculture? Why is it different when it comes to economic systems?

And let's be honest a moment - in an age of such Western economic failure, is the Euro-Atlantic community really more likely to be dispesnsers of good advice - good enough for a regime change war - or to be looking for some stored up financial blood to suck - via a regime change war and the plunder-tization of Libya?

Water
Pepe Escobar again:

The water privatizers
Few in the West may know that Libya - along with Egypt - sits over the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer; that is, an ocean of extremely valuable fresh water. So yes, this "now you see it, now you don't" war is a crucial water war. Control of the aquifer is priceless - as in "rescuing" valuable natural resources from the "savages".

This Water Pipelineistan - buried underground deep in the desert along 4,000 km - is the Great Man-Made River Project (GMMRP), which Gaddafi built for $25 billion without borrowing a single cent from the IMF or the World Bank (what a bad example for the developing world). The GMMRP supplies Tripoli, Benghazi and the whole Libyan coastline. The amount of water is estimated by scientists to be the equivalent to 200 years of water flowing down the Nile.

Compare this to the so-called three sisters - Veolia (formerly Vivendi), Suez Ondeo (formerly Generale des Eaux) and Saur - the French companies that control over 40% of the global water market. All eyes must imperatively focus on whether these pipelines are bombed. An extremely possible scenario is that if they are, juicy "reconstruction" contracts will benefit France. That will be the final step to privatize all this - for the moment free - water. From shock doctrine to water doctrine.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC30Ak01.html

Military-political organizations
NATO, as Pepe Escobar writes, intends to subordinate the last Mediterranean country (aside from Syria and Lebanon) not allied with NATO, to make the Med "a NATO lake." Further, the U.S. African Command (Africom) does not want to co-exist with the Libya-favored African Union.

Pepe Escobar, "There's no business like war business", Asia Times, March 30

It started with Africom - established under the George W Bush administration, beefed up under Obama, and rejected by scores of African governments, scholars and human rights organizations. Now the war is transitioning to NATO, which is essentially Pentagon rule over its European minions.

This is Africom's first African war, conducted up to now by General Carter Ham out of his headquarters in un-African Stuttgart. Africom, as Horace Campbell, professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University puts it, is a scam; "fundamentally a front for US military contractors like Dyncorp, MPRI and KBR operating in Africa. US military planners who benefit from the revolving door of privatization of warfare are delighted by the opportunity to give Africom credibility under the facade of the Libyan intervention."

Africom's Tomahawks also hit - metaphorically - the African Union (AU), which, unlike the Arab League, cannot be easily bought by the West. The Arab Gulf petro-monarchies all cheered the bombing - but not Egypt and Tunisia. Only five African countries are not subordinated to Africom; Libya is one of them, along with Sudan, Ivory Coast, Eritrea and Zimbabwe.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC30Ak01.html