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Monday 22 August 2011

Libya - what next?

John Rees on Libya:

'There will be no tears for the end of the Gaddafi regime if that is indeed what we are watching. The Gaddafi regime was a brutal dictatorship and it deserved to be overthrown just as much as that of Ben Ali’s in Tunisia or Mubarak’s in Egypt. But, unlike the defeat of Ben Ali or Mubarak, the end of Gaddafi has not been brought about mainly by a popular revolutionary rising. It has been brought about by a military victory in a civil war in which the rebel side has become largely dependent on western military fire power.

So the question now posed is this: in whose interest will the new rulers of Libya act? NATO is already saying that it will work with the Transitional National Council. This, more of a threat than a promise, should be no surprise. The point of the western intervention in Libya was to gain a foothold in the fast moving Arab revolutions and to create a compliant regime by making it militarily and economically dependent on the west in a way in which, say, the Tunisian UGTT or the Youth Coalitions of Egypt could never be said to be.

So the major powers will be looking for payback. They will want an Arab regime which is a home for western military bases. They will want a regime that is supportive of Israel (and the TNC has already made supportive statements in favour of the ‘war on terror’). And they will want a Libya that is safe for BP, Shell and other western corporations, whether from the oil industry or elsewhere.'

Read in full HERE.

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1 comment:

  1. It also has a lot more to do with contracts signed by the EU and NATO to get Oil, Oil is the defining priciple for going to war these days, if you have no Oil then you get no help.

    BP had signed a Billion pound contract after Blair kissed the man on both cheeks and then told him he was a great leader, of course Blair will tell you he had planed all this to get the overthrow.

    But the big problem now if this group does win and it will by the look of it, will we end up with another regime which is more or less the same, after all most of the people within the new regime are Gaddafi's hench men anyway with two more high ranking officials leaving to join the new regime yesterday.

    Next will be the new leaders looking at the Oil deals done with Gaddaffi and the sales of new contracts and the battles between the UK and America to get the deals done and dusted, so watch the money flow to Libya in the next few months, it would not suprise me I will lose some more of my welfare benefits to buy a few contracts.

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