Who's Been Brainwashed?
Gaddafi - A Libyan Hero
By Philip Pank in Tripoli
Muammar Gaddafi has announced plans to dismantle the Government, hand the riches from Africa's biggest oil reserves to the people and nationalise foreign oil operations that have recently been allowed back into the country. The announcement has left diplomats and the 40 overseas oil companies operating in the country on edge. Continue
Why the West Is Attacking Gaddafi
By Michael S. Rozeff
The basic reason is simple. Gaddafi confronts their power. He confronts the status quo of the Empire. He demands greater power for Africa and the African Union. He demands greater power for smaller countries in the United Nations.
May 12, 2011 "Lew Rockwell" --
Outside powers in the West stirred up and blessed the rebellion against Gaddafi. Through NATO and the UN, they are now aiding these same rebels.
They want to get rid of Gaddafi. They want him removed from power. This article explains why they want this.
The basic reason is simple. Gaddafi confronts their power. He confronts the status quo of the Empire. He demands greater power for Africa and the African Union. He demands greater power for smaller countries in the United Nations. Gaddafi calls for investigations of past wars. He is calling for a new way forward that reduces the powers of any one or a few countries to dominate the world.
For the sake of appearances, the Western allies are fighting the war in Libya within self-chosen limits. They need to maintain the facade of a legitimate and neutral NATO that is acting with UN approval. These organizations are under their control. They calculate that they can get rid of Gaddafi within those limits, while still not appearing to be the aggressors against him that they are.
Gaddafi’s relations with the West have always been rocky and filled with mutual distrust. They have followed many twists and turns...
George Bush and Dick Cheney brand Gaddafi as a terrorist and the West accepts this as gospel, but when they attack Iraq and kill far more people than Gaddafi has, the West mostly approves or looks the other way. Gaddafi is criticized for overseas assassinations, but Obama is lauded for his...
Why then has the West now done an about face after the period of good relations? Why have Gaddafi’s worst fears come to pass after a rather brief period of friendship?
After Gaddafi’s most friendly embrace and adoption of Obama as his African son, why has Obama turned against Gaddafi?
It is not because Gaddafi met rebellion with force. It is not because the West has humanitarian concerns. The West has done nothing against the force used by Saudi Arabia in Bahrain and the force being used by the government in Syria against Syrians in rebellion.
It is not because of a concern for democracy. In fact, Gaddafi proposed a radical form of social democracy that the Libyan government rejected. He proposed to nationalize and distribute oil revenues directly to Libyans. This placed Gaddafi at odds with members of his own state bureaucracy and with the Libyan National Oil Company. This friction between Gaddafi and the government may be one of the factors that brought about a civil war.
...This public threat to nationalize may have been a bargaining ploy, but combined with the renegotiated contracts, it was bound to cause the oil companies and their government friends to become somewhat uneasy about what Gaddafi’s next moves would be. Furthermore, Gaddafi had another bargaining chip, which was the prospect of utilizing Russian, Chinese and Indian oil companies...
Libyan oil has to be viewed in the broader context of African oil. It is not a well-known fact, but African oil rivals or even surpasses Middle East oil as a supplier to the U.S. There have been large oil discoveries in several regions of Africa. There is competition to secure this oil among the U.S., Europe, China, Russia, India, and South Korea.
This leads into and is connected with the second reason for the West’s desire to remove Gaddafi, which is his bid to organize African nations politically so as to have greater power as against the major powers in the world, East and West.
Under new conditions, the world is unfolding another chapter in the rivalries over African resources, reminiscent of earlier colonial-imperial rivalries. In this case, the West is still interested in controlling these resources, but it is facing competition from nations from the East...
The reason for their opposition to Gaddafi shows up in high relief in Gaddafi’s extraordinary U.N. speech of Sept. 23, 2009.
There is a video with accompanying translation of his speech, here and here. There is also a reasonably good transcript of that translation that is available.
In this speech, Gaddafi stood up against the West. He openly and pointedly criticized the U.N.’s structure. He told many uncomfortable truths.
He raised many uncomfortable questions. He proposed global political changes that reduce the powers of the big countries and raised the powers of smaller countries, African countries, and Islamic countries.
Ironically, this war against him again shows the truth in some of his harshest criticisms of the U.N.’s behavior and political structure. But this time not because of his supporting what the West calls terrorism, but for his striving to change the world’s balance of powers.
The West turned against Gaddafi because of this challenge.
As it turns out, Gaddafi’s critique of the Security Council and the U.N. was precisely on target, although he surely didn’t expect that he would be the one to provide another example so quickly. His distrust of the U.S. and its allies also proved to be warranted...
The best way to understand why the West is putting down Gaddafi is to read his speech in its entirety. Discard that which is frivolous or speculation or personal. Retain that which is serious. Be patient with the inadequacies of the translation.
This speech challenges the American Empire. It challenges the West. It challenges the dominance of a few major powers. The West wants to suppress this kind of thinking. The West is suppressing this kind of thinking. The West is in the process of removing Gaddafi and replacing him with their puppets. That is why NATO is bombing Libya.
The West is attacking Gaddafi to reduce the influence of his ideas among other nations...
Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline.
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