Great Man-Made River, Being Undone by Men?

July 25, 2011

I don't write so much here on the nature of the fighting in the Libyan Civil War, geeking out instead on the underlying moral justifications and the reality of the rebellion in February (and before), and only highlights of later, broader developments. But this shocking new turn is one those, and warrants special mention.

It's been seriously alleged, though details are still coming out (see below), that NATO's warplanes have started targeting Libya's civilian water system, the epic "Great Man-Made River." At right, the horse-shaped system as shown on the Libyan 20 dinar bill, from Wikipedia's entry on the "GMR". This government project provides most of Libya's people and crops with fresh water piped in from a vast aquifer beneath the southern deserts.

The portion reportedly attacked is that ending at the government-held but rebel-coveted city of Brega - approximately the horse's behind in the network above, just past the furthest reach rebel country in the east, or the horse's tail. Brega is also a major oil terminal and host to repeated NATO assaults in recent weeks, including an unprecedented July 6 taking out of fuel supplies used by the government of Libya. It's also hosted repeated rebel assaults and claims to have taken it. It's past the reasonable dividing line between east and west Libya.

Now, it's alleged, NATO's trying to turn off the water to this town. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, as quoted in an AP report carried by USA Today:

"Most Libyans drink from the Great Manmade River, most Libyan land is farmed from the water, so any harm against this vital project is a harm aginst all Libyans. We believe this a very dangerous development in NATO'S attacks."

I'm not sure what he said in his full remarks (will report back if interesting), but this doesn't specify the  physical system was being targeted. My first tip-off to that effect was via the interesting Libya S.O.S.  blogspot site, and picked up by many, including by Uruknet.com. "RAPE of LIBYA : GREAT MAN MADE RIVER reason for NATO attack."

July 22 2011. A date for humanity to remember. NATO hit the Libyan water supply pipeline. It will take months to repair. Then on Saturday they hit the pipeline factory producing pipes to repair it.

Sine [sic] when is the water supply pipeline itself a legitimate target?

I don't know ... like with the oil facilities hit, again in Brega - it could be that "Gaddafi's forces" were using it to hydrate themselves during their attacks on "civilians." Who apparently don't require water?

Was it only the Brega part hit? If so, NATO isn't trying to deprive all Libya of water to pressure them against Gaddafi. That would only say all loyalists in Brega should move out and leave the plum of a prize to rot in Benghazi's orbit.  This is a rebel town now, they'd be saying, and only our contractors (French water privatizers no doubt) will be allowed to build and run the replacement system. "Illegitimate" governments don't get to do that.

Those are some first thoughts I had, anyway. On first blush, it's simply alarming. But I needed to learn more, of course.

What (it seems) Happened
The widest-run article was by AP (it's what USA Today used, and also Canadian Business.com. While relating this war crime alleged against NATO, the article focuses on rebel demands that Gaddafi leave Libya and stand trial for his own alleged war crimes. If I felt the slightest confident the trial would be fair, by the way, I'd be urging him to go and get his name cleared of the charges.

The rumors these were based on have brought on the third and fourth foci of the AP report, yet another bombardment of Tripoli to pressure the people into revolt, and an attack in Tripoli on some high officials by pressured people, which the government denies happened ("cooking gas," says Ibrahim, an "accident.")

On the GMR attack, besides quoting Mr. Ibrahim, this report says only:

NATO planes struck a factory near the embattled oil city of Brega on Friday [July 22] killing six guards, Libyan officials said.

The plant, located six miles (10 kilometers) south of the strategic oil installation, builds the huge pipes that carry water from underground aquifers deep in the south to the coast as part of the Great Man Made River irrigation project.

"Major parts of the plant have been damaged," said Abdel-Hakim el-Shwehdy, head of the company running the project. "There could be major setback for the future projects."

At least 70 percent of Libyans survive on the water carried through the pipes to the coast in the project, according to government figures.

As for the earlier attack that had required these replacements: I can't find anything yet aside from the implication by Libya S.O.S. that the pipeline factory was hit Saturday (the 23rd), following a strike on the "water supply pipeline" itself on Friday.

Until I learn better, I'm considering this one-two punch interpretation a mistake. And that would narrow the possible crime to weakening the government's ability to repair the pipeline, should it be attacked, by rebel/al Qaeda elements or NATO, in the future. And of course, they'll insist the factory was making or doing something else besides pipe work, something horrible they can't explain, related to "attacking civilians."

video: Libya / Brega: NATO bombed "Great Man Made River"factory, war crimes

It looks like the expansive grounds of a factory, not a section of pipeline spewing water. A sign above the door says, in English:
"We try to continuously
Safety First , Quality Best
Save Cost , Delivery Just"
Another large building in the complex is demolished - its frame is mostly intact, but its walls and contents are blown out across the grounds. Then the factory's purpose is shown, a huge lot of 10-foot pipe sections, row after row, hundreds at least, filmed I think after the attack, and still available. It's only if they need more than this - and in a time of war, it's possible - that their downturn in production will matter much.

So as I see it, this facility is, technically, a part of the pipeline system - its management and maintenance parts. But it's not a part that starts bleeding life-water when blown up.

For the six guards killed, if true, and for their families, the matter is more immediate.

Further Reactions, Perhaps Beyond the Mark
NATO Bombs Libyan Water Pipe:Humanitarian Disaster

NATO jets destroyed key water infrastructure near the Libyan city of Brega on Friday. The plant is located six miles outside of the city of Brega, and was specifically targeted. Six plant workers were killed during the attack.

The plant is part of the Great Man Made River Project
[...]
It is an unfortunate strategy designed to create human suffering. NATO is desperate to spark unrest against the Gaddafi regime by any means.

The irony is that this war began under the auspices of helping the Libyan people. Now they are made to suffer as part of a NATO strategy. The policy reinforces the reality that the Libyan war has as little to do with humanitarianism as the Iraq war had to do with weapons of mass destruction.

Mathaba, a Libyan-centric but independent media outfit ran a piece that added Muammar Gaddafi's own personal reaction to the new strike(s):

Mathaba has learnt that the Leader of the Revolution sent a message on Friday to members of the UN Security Council who are not taking part in the aggression against Libya, notably Russia and China, regarding the NATO European terrorists targeting of the pipe factory of the great man made river in the city of Brega, where pipes are manufactured to compensate for damaged pipes of the river, the only source of drinking waters and irrigation for the people of Libya.

(bolding mine - actual damaged sections or hypothetical ones?)

Russia's pre-eminent Pravda.ru website pulled no punches here:

A NATO terrorist attack has hit a water pipes factory in al-Brega, murdering six guards, this being the factory which makes pipes for the great man-made irrigation system across the desert which brings water to seventy per cent of Libyan homes, according to sources in Libya. The factory was hit after the water supply network was destroyed on Friday.

The source is the same Libya SOS report, so it's not a support. But Pravda added:

NATO has committed another war crime, targeting a civilian water supply network which brings water to 70% of Libya's population, according to Pravda.Ru sources in Libya. The general manager of the Man Made River Corporation which controls the pipeline reports it was hit in a NATO strike on Friday. In another clear violation of the law, a consignment from Italy of 19 000 AK-47's was caught in Ajdabiyah by the Libyan authorities, according to Libyan military sources.
[...]
If NATO's contribution to protecting civilians is bombing their water supply then the international community will respond to this heinous war crime, whether or not the politicians do. Will anyone please do something about this horrendous war crime? Or will we all sit back while NATO destroys water supply lines, a civilian structure? Is this protecting civilians or is this an act of revenge because NATO is losing?

Thoughts on a Two-State Solution

July 15/16, 2011
last update July 22


So here we are in mid-July, with the Libyan Civil War / NATO's war for Libya on the verge of five months old. Even France and the US are backing down from their broadest swipe at Libya's system, narrowing the focus back to the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. Negotiations with the sitting government are now being considered, based on whispers that the strongman might consider leaving power, if not Libya. His sons, not so central. This might be the talk of the tired.

And discussions on the future shape of the country, as seen on the map, are opening up. I've been meaning to explain my proposed two-state solution, but it took being annoyed by an article to finally spur this attempt. Matt Gregory wrote about - and panned - such a solution the other day.
http://technorati.com/politics/article/south-sudan-libya-and-the-two/page-3/

Many have suggested that a two state solution, in which two seperate entities, East and West Libya, were created; the Western state would be controlled by Gadhafi and have a capital in Tripoli, and the Eastern state would be governed, like in South Sudan, by a new government with its base in Benghazi. The border would be located in the area outside the rebel-held Misrata. And, like in Sudan, everyone would be satisfied. Right?

No, that's ridiculous. See the map below, where red is areas solidly held by rebels (it's a bit simplified, and doesn't show the implied southern desert control). The loyal people of the Sirte basin would not be happy to be swallowed under traitor control by the Misrata rebel's intransigence and ability to barely hold on.

Hell, there's a rebel toehold in Az Zintan, and other rebel holdings that come and go in the surrounding Nafusah mountains, west even of Tripoli. Do the rebels get the mountains and everything east of there now? That's the whole country! If the rebels keep Misrata at all (and despite the unfair cost to real Libya, it'll be hard to avoid), it'll be as a discontiguous exclave, and under military quarantine. Misrata cannot be the threat to Tripoli the rebels want it for.

Reality is what it is - real. No one among the great powers will now sanction a re-conquest of all Cyrenaica by Gaddafi's forces. The two sides are not likely to peacefully re-integrate any time soon after what's happened. The border should be just southwest of Ajdabiya. The cease-fire would leave the Nafusah mountain rebels frozen out of control, and quite possibly Misrata, besides the aspirants in other cities. They would be allowed to leave for the east. In fact, all people who feel displaced must be free to migrate.

It should be noted my east Libya is not really large (nor all that small), and pretty coastal. No one needs the desert south of there except for the oil in it. And this was never about stealing Libya's oil, only about freedom. There - two million people, hundreds of miles, beautiful cities, the second largest among them - coastal Cyrenaica, under rebel control and recognized, in peace, with elections, and endowed with offshore oil (north and slightly west) that's not bad.

I recommend also a cut off the top of all onshore and offshore oil under Tripoli's control, as these are still (some of) the peopl of Libya. But the management of that, via terminals in Brega and westward, should stay under Tripoli. Whatever else they've done, Gaddafi and his government have shown an ability to manage the oil wealth for the peoples' benefit, as opposed to Wall Street's. Benghazi should have a small share (reduced for extreme intransigence and sedition), but not be allowed to control and sell it out.

And then, maybe that could just be nullified in trade for continued access to the Great Manmade River, built by the government the rebels reject, but relied on by all Libyans... they could call it even Steven there, and have a small start towards re-discovering what they have in common. The truth and reconciliation will take a while to even broach, it's been so horrific since the rebels started the war in February.

Anyway, that's my proposal. It's much too fair to Tripoli for most peoples' liking. Just about anything is, it sometimes seems. For his part, Mr. Gergory in his article was pessimistic even about his narrow Western slice of Libya being acceptable.

Unfortunately, this plan would not work for several reasons. First of all, Muhammar Gadhafi is a war criminal. Retired British army Brigadier Ben Barry, who served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia, stated that should a two-state solution be implemented and Gadhafi remain in power, he would, "behave like an intransigent Bosnian warlord...controlling energy resources and then reverting to previous bad behavior."

Indeed, should Gadhafi, to whom an arrest warrant has already been issued by the International Criminal Court, be allowed to remain in power, he would be able to revert to his ruthless, tyrannical ways and virtually enslave all the people unfortunate enough to live west of rebel-held Misrata. Gadhafi has already been accused of human rights violations, such as the use of cluster bombs, which are extremely dangerous to civilians, and the location of military personell and weaponry in close proximity to buildings such as mosques, schools, and hospitals. If democracy is the object of NATO's mission in Libya, such a solution would not work.

That Gaddafi is a war criminal is undeniable on paper, but reality is another story. I'm not impressed with the opinion of a crusading war-crimes-empowered, war-crimes-believing, British general. There's been serious disinformation about a certain class of NATO target governments like Yugoslavia and Libya.

For one, Libya never blew up Pan Am flight 103 in 1988; this much is known by the best minds on the issue, although on paper they're still guilty by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's preposterous 2001 conviction. Likewise, the supposed crimes of this war have a legal reality in the ICC arrest warrants - but these are based on what could best be understood as unverified rumors, as the 1991 indictments over Lockerbie were based on dubious stories from a paid and coerced informant. This time, by and large, it's unconfirmed and unlikely "tweets" from self-described rebels.

The cluster bombing - which has been questioned but might still be true (I need to update that issue) - is the least of it. The Gaddafi regime has been accused of using black foreign mercenaries to commit a range of atrocities against innocents. Hundreds or thousands have been arrested for the crime, hundreds others killed, but all expert analysis [see "refutations"] of these claimed foreign fighters shows they're foreigners but just workers, or fighters but Libyans and serving their country. Tripoli has been acused of bombing protesters with fighter jets, ordering them shot and ordering soldiers who refuse shot, bombing mosques and shooting worshippers for no good reason ("God vs. Gaddafi," he's secretly a Jew, etc.), ordering mass rape, again and again in different sadistic ways, having young children shot by snipers, planning various genocide and preparing for chemical warfare, and much more, all with no credible evidence. This will be the subject soon of a mega-post to keep score of how these have all panned out under scrutiny.

If a lying campaign like we're seeing emerge is pervasive and audacious enough that the world has called it true, should we, in the interests of skepticism, presume it must be mostly true?

Furthermore, a peace deal at this time in which the civil war was halted in order to create a division between Gadhafi's Libya and the rebel-held East would negate any of the positive progress that the rebel forces have made over the last few days. Slowly but surely, rebels have crept through the desert towards Tripoli, overtaking supply routes and weapons depots as they move forward. While no major victories have been won in the recent past, this new progress offers hope that rebel forces will eventually be able to eliminate Gadhafi and his forces for good, negating the need for any two-state solution. Should such a deal be signed, any momentum accumulated will be lost and Libyans will only be able to dream of what could have been a unified state under a democratic government.

Ask the people of conquered Qawalish (aka Gualish) how positive this progress is. They fled the rebel conquest, and if they ever return, it'll be to burnt homes, looted stores, dead livestock, and a drained gas station. At least six defending soldiers were brutally killed and dumped outside Qawalish. Civilians were beaten and homes burnt in other towns in the area, to punish them for siding with the government. [see here for explanation]

Whatever the nature of it, this progress towards Gharyan and then Tripoli came only after relentless and costly outside bombing, destroying perhaps half Libya's real army, stealing a huge chunk of its money, refusing compromise, punishing peace initiatives, and finally air-dropping weapons for weeks in violation of the arms embargo. Only then this army of a thousand Islamist mountain punks made some gains towards what? Imposing their will on the million in Tripoli itself? Imagine David Koresh's group, twenty times larger and better armed. Should the Russians be holding out for a takeover of Texas? Or the whole US?

Again, the People there DO NOT WANT IT. The people west of Ajdabiya are already "enslaved" under Gaddafi and most seem fine enough with it, for now, if the world would just let them run their country, buy gasoline, work, and get paid, ever again. That's great that so many talking heads and world leaders and crusading journalists want rebel control over the green-washed masses to start re-programming them. So long as the free market people currently heading the rebel TNC stay in charge, the West is happy, confident they'll get those spoils coming in to satiate the masses at home who complain about the cost - as if they don't know a burglary takes a few bucks to set up.

The only fair solution to the reality on the ground is a (temporary) two-state solution. Anything else puts a lot of people under the rule of others they consider traitors and butchers. It's that simple. 

I can see why putting the whole back together under Tripoli's rule will be unacceptable to everyon that matters. But I cannot support the opposite either. Perhaps Mr. Gregory - or Secretary Clinton? - will want to go to Tripoli and Brega, to the besieged loyalists still alive inside rebel-held Misrata and the threatened blacks of Tawergha that they just have to get used to the new order. A nasty coalition of the Lynch mob people who now say "Tawergha no longer exists, only Misrata," Islamist radicals returned from Gitmo and Iraq, monarchists who just suck, and TNC sell-outs who eye kickbacks upon helping NATO's economies finally crack open Africa's largest oil reserves for real.

This seems to have been the aim of the rebel-NATO alliance, but that doesn't make it a just one, one that progress towards should be called "positive." People need to notice how fuzzy their understanding of this whole issue - starting with the geography of it - really is. Lives are at stake here.

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