fits what I figured

Old one liner from 1960's about Europe's African colonies becoming nations: 'Let them have their little legislatures, as long as we keep the banks.'
About 4 years ago I watched a BBCNewsworld debate about Africa's economy. It was the usual hand wringing about 'How can we help the poor Africans develop their resources?
Members of the audience were invited to question the debaters. Most said they were from this or that African nation.
One fellow from the audience said that many Africans did business with people from China because they were treated as equals, not with the patronizing disdain that they got from Europeans and North Americans. What struck me was that at these words, many in the audience smiled in recognition and nodded in agreement with the speaker.

It is good to see someone in the media mention Africom (apparently, our miltary response to China's business intitiatives) and the efforts to establish the African currency for use in marketing African commodities.

From the get-go in Libya, the African Union has been marginalized by NATO.
When the government forces moved across Libya, east to west, they took this town, that city, this town,...then just before they were to go after Benghazi, we were given the news that the government forces were intending to murder everyone in Benghazi, and NATO began its military 'humanitarian' mission.
(Perhaps they had to move to protect all those NATO diplomats and mitlitary personnel already working with the rebels in Benghazi)
Around then the AU claimed steps had been taken for a deal, but the NATO attacks wiped out that possibility.

Good thing we are getting those single engine fighter jets so that we can do these humanitarion missions well into this century.

And the rest of us can go on wringing our hands about the poor Africans, and asking how we can help them to develop.

Is it a conspiracy world?

Perhaps we can draw a parallel to the way USA has tried to destroy Castro?

Perhaps the cover-up for the Libia fiasco will be as flimsy as the cover-up for 9-11?

Dictators often do some good (even Hitler) and at times that is the way for a country to evolve into a proper democratic society.

Here, we could use revolt to keep our democracy working, let's just hope that it will not be run by youthfull thugs.

Wealth is the temporary

Wealth is the temporary control of energy.

Wealth can not be created only taken from others, the environment and future generations.

The cause of all wars, impoverishment, starvation in history.

In the past, "wealth creation" was excused and licenced by religious theories, called "the spreading of the faith" and "the Will of God", now with fraudulent ideological and economic theories, to maintain the value of worthless, imaginary money, "created" from the air by special interests, that exists only as computer figures, licencing enslavement and destruction.

Will humanity ever wake up ?

Ed Deak.

Where were you, Murray?

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16061917

http://www.wluml.org/node/7051

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Women-of-the-Libyan-Re-by-Mac-McKinney-110313-212.html

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/africa/gaddafi-strongholds-defy-rebels-order-to-surrender-2865693.html

http://english.libya.tv/2011/08/18/libyan-women-active-force-in-revolution/

Wow

Thats all I can say after reading this piece.
It truly makes the mind contemplate the propaganda spewed through media, and govt, in order to re-establish control over resources.
Here was a country with nationalized energy, providing healthcare and education to its population, and big business and govt (same thing) unable to get a foothold in this country exploited the population though NATA resolutions.
I think I'm going to be SICK

Bo Ed humanity will never

Bo Ed humanity will never ever wake up. Were a selfish greedy destructive species where so many believe what they hear on the tv news.. What other species on this planet has killed so many of its own? and in the name of an invisible sky wizard?

Humans are not evolved at all, we just think we are.

I would say most humans will be extinct within 100 years (A nuclear war or some other gawd awful weapon scientists invent instead of inventing something that benefits everyone) and maybe the few left over will reproduce and hopefully improve things. I really have no hope for humans.

NATO is nothing but the USA's 'bitch' anyway. When I see NATO I read it as USA.

The USA will get theirs. Hopefully I am still around to see it. From Cuba to Yemen they butt in and can not mind their own business, steal resources, install murdering thugs that let US corps rape and pillage resources...Then cry and play the innocent victim and do not understand why airplanes fly into buildings...

for once a justified war, for once an incorrect Murray Dobbin

Gaddhafi was a tyrant. Nobody forced the people of Libya to rise up against him, except perhaps Gaddhafi when he responded to their protest with brutal violence.

If we didn't support those "undisciplined young men" there would not have been a more gender balanced or philosophically nuanced group coming along to replace them. Ghaddafi's tyranny would have chugged along in the long term, civilians would have died in the short term. Libya would have continued to to sell oil to the west and Libyans would have continued to live under a dictator.

We'll see what happens now, but Canada's support of an grass-roots uprising against a dictator is something I'm proud. I don't suppose the the government that emerges will be any more of a plutonic western-style democracy then those freedom fighters were agents of cool-headed humanitarian

oops, pressed submit before finishing

...calm. But I'll bet it's better than the alternative.

Yes, Libya was a bastion of hope and hapiness

and their streets were paved with gold, and no one had anything to be sad about, as father Gadhafi took such good care of his children. According to him: "All my people love me. They would die to protect me".
And we all know Gadhafi is incapable of lying...
I could post hundreds of articles on his regime of torture and his fortune. But then the author could just as easily have researched them though they'd really take the air out of this article...

Wealth is the temporary control of energy.

You have it right on Ed!
Greed will never be bred out of the human animal. It's in our genes. The instinctive need to gather more than we require for sustenance is inherent.
In light of the most recent displays of greed on massive scales, I believe that anarchy is what we all need to be afraid of.

I agree with Murray.

This would not be the first time U.S. intervention in another countries affairs came back to bite them in the collective backside. All well and good the get rid on a dictator but sometimes the dictator you know can be isolated. Once he/she is gone you can never tell who will fill the vacancy created. The new regime could be worse and more threatening to the U.S..

Canadians should know better than to rally around the corporate interest flag. Murray is right on to point out the dangers of relying on military solutions. No war unless you are being threatened by and outside aggressor is ever justified. This feeling of righteousness because we have more military hardware is going to come back on us eventually.

It doesn't matter if Ghadaffi was a tyrant what went on in that

Country was none of our business and I agree with Murray they went after G because he was a threat to their power and Imperial designs in Africa. Saudia Arabia is much worse human rights violator than China or Libya but we don't go after them and the US prision system with 80% of the black population esconed in the injustice system is a form of Aparthied. Blacks are only 12% of the population how come so many are in jail or on parole or probation or getting set up for life in the system? The US is a failed rouge state corrupt from top to bottom and the most dangerous nation ever to take root in the history of humanity. More wrong and harm is done in America every day than all the other nations on the face of the earth and much of it by its' governments second only to it's corporations-selling aids infected blood products to nations overseas how unconscionable is that?

Steel....My biggest fear is

Steel....My biggest fear is that when the depression comes, we'll be flooded with armed gangs looting the country. Something out of the movie "Road Warrior". Quite possible with all the guns around.

The last depression was quite peaceful, but now , with "competitiveness" hammered into people's heads, justifying and legalizing criminal behavour, the politicians and their economist priesthood are asking for uncontrolled violence.

I've asked politicians what plans they may have for the case of a major economic breakdown that could happen at any time, but never received any answer from anybody.

Living in a dreamworld of idiotic "conservative" beliefs theories.

The farmers in the Wheatboard just voted over 60% to keep the monopoly and their incomes, , instead of getting screwed around by the likes of Cargill, as we are with our cattle, but Harper says, it makes no difference, "not binding".

Good "conservative" democracy, where votes don't count, unless they favour the Lords of Money.

Still have to "login", every time I go on Tyee.

For crying out guys, isn't there anything you can do to stop this nonsense ?

Ed Deak.

terrible to live in Libya?

You weren't allowed to agitate for multinational conglomerates to scoop up your resources at fire sale prices. You weren't allowed to agitate for the National Endowment for Democracy to shower dissident groups with cash. You weren't allowed to agitate for the International Monetary Fund to have the freedom to dictate your policies to you. You weren't alloed to agitate for the obvious everlasting global supremacy of USA currency.

If you could bring yourself to live under such draconian restrictions, then what was life like? Religious extremists sadly without political power. Institutions of higher learning forced to offer services at a loss. Energy unable not make full return on investment by offering products at full global market prices. Government money wasted on frivilous projects like the Great Man Made River. Oh the humanity!!

Because as we've shown in Afghanistan and Iraq, once you bow down to western ideals then murder and rape and torture of innocents are over forever, and dissidents are free to do whatever they want whenever they want with no fear of violent reprisal. It's just that easy to run those countries, the only reason for past repression is simply that past leaders were pure evil, nothing to do with the situation on the ground, just look at the happy situation for our friendly accopying armies. Just like here at home in the west, where our african and native populations enjoy full equality in everything, and the police drop teddy bears from helicopters onto demonstrations no matter how many windows are broken by black bloc minorities.

And nobody here has ever heard of rendition, where would be revolutionaries were sent to friendly countries like Libya for enhanced re education.

We are such beacons to the world!! How could anyone not scramble to obey us?!?!

/sarcasm

Hail to the dictators

Am I reading most comments to this article correctly?

Commodity nationalization is good, and Ghadhafi's was a model for the rest of the world? Grow up -- who was lining up to immigrate to Libya and their wonderful healthcare system?

No one should claim the NTC is united, peaceful, loving, and has the good of all Libyans behind every motive. Still, some journalists can't see a people longing to be free of an oppressor, despite the risks.

Colonial Chaos

Libya, like most countries in Africa, is not a unitary nation, where people can move freely & live in any part of the country without fear that they will be treated as "the other". These countries are the results of arbitrary boundaries drawn up between European colonial powers as they tried to spread their empires across Africa. This current conflict pits regional tribes centered around Benghazi against others centered on Tripoli - interestingly, Ghadafi comes from a small, central tribe. These fractured countries are readily exploited by the ex-colonialists who can readily persuade one group to take up arms against another. This only becomes likely when there are huge natural resources at stake.
The pity of it all is that the innocent suffer while the bought & paid-for mass media pour out the lies to cover up our greed.

Thank You Murray

THanks Murray: It is hard to find rational analysis around the issue of Libya. The attack on Libya had as much to do with the Arab spring as the invasion of Iraq had to do with 9/11: In each case events provided an opportunity and excuse for the west to do what it wanted for reasons of its own.

The real "Arab spring", as seen in Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain, has elements of democracy, Pan Arabism, and mistrust of the west along with the currupt governments we have installed in the mideast.

The article's comments about western opposition to Libya's role in Africa (e.g., Gadaffi's opposition to French imperialism in Chad) are very much to the point, as are its comments about the fact that -- while Gadaffi is neither a democrat nor a human rights supporter -- the level of curruption exhibited by US supported regimes from Mubarek to the House of Saud to Ferdinand Marcos is in an entirely different league from Gadaffi, who used revenues largely for the benefit of the population, and for Arab and African Nationalist goals.

Lastly, thanks for pointing out that the well-intentioned of the west have been sucker-punched by the claims of R2P: after this precedent, all that will be required henceforth to support a US invasion anywhere will be four or five nights of bad press on CNN for the villainized leader of the target country. (This shouldn't be hard since so many horrific sleazebags were actually installed or supported by the US in the first place before falling out of favour...e.g., Sadaam, Noriega, and elements within the Taliban -- whom Regan called freedom fighters back in the 70s & 80s).

Giving NATO the right to interpret and enforce R2P is like giving the fox the keys to the henhouse.

Stop the World

I want to get off.
My sentiments as well, Dan the Socialist.

another stupid kick at the hornet's nest

I'm no big fan of that fashion clown Ghadafi, but all this leaves me wondering if any despised leadership that only enjoys minority support of the people is now fair target for NATO's bombs. In other words, is Ottawa next after Tripoli? After all, we've also got lots of oil and gas, and plenty of pissed off youth.

Why Libya & Not Syria?

Libya is the latest version of Charlie Wilson's War:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/
Plenty of money for arms because it's sexy and profitable. Bbut when the proverbial dust settles, there'll be no money for infrastructure - because there's no big money to be made.

Having said that, I think the real reason that NATO "went into" Libya but not Syria is because it's still pissed over Lockerbie.

PS

That AlQueda(?) is apparently taking advantage of the maelstrom in Libya shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Weapons for the taking. Just plain "good business".

RickW

Don't forget Libya has oil.

Liers and The Security State of Capitalism = Fascism

"When the U.S. invaded Iraq riding a pack of lies and monstrous manipulation, the entire U.S. elite, including major news services, academics, and politicians from both "sides" of the spectrum, lined up to cheerlead and off they went to war. It was one of the most shameful chapters in the long history of shameful acts of U.S. imperial foreign policy." Murray Dobbin

More true words have not been spoken on this subject.

We are not yet, in my view, and that of many other more reputable critics of the Water-Boarders explanations for 911, in receipt of the truth around this event... or what is currently going on in Libya. But you know that it involves oil. (And it is particularly the Russian view, known to me, that it is the European powers, especially France and England, upset over large oil concessions given to them (Russians) and the Chinese by Ghadiffi, that is what is really behind the NATO powers coming down on the side of "the rebels". And the US owes these powers big time, from the Iraq and Afghan wars, and perhaps a hoped for a share of Libyan oil for themselves... which brings them onside with England and France.)

Until 911, Al Quaida was "largely" unknown to most of the worlds populace certainly, outside perhaps some "intelligence" circles. And Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary for Britain under Tony Blair, claims Al Quaida is, in fact, a complete CIA fabrication... the name taken from a file titled "the database", that was a record of the mujahadeen groups they were working with, supplying arms and bankrolling, in Afghanistan against the Russians.

The central point being, there is so much cloak and dagger bullshit flying around here still, from the Water-Boarder days of Cheney and Bush to now, regarding the entire Middle East, that it is near impossible for the average citizen, political or otherwise, to know precisely what is happening. All that we can really be sure of is, that this entire Al Qaida/terrorism narrative is being used to create support for a new fascist model "Security State of Capitalism". The evidence of this is all around us.

We should avoid being fooled by any of the smoke and mirrors being thrown up now, around the economic collapse of the entire global capitalist system, and the gathering collapse of its "imperial system" of hegemony, controlling much of the world's resouces, with oil the main prize, especially in the Middle East.

blood for oil

excellent article. as if the west ever cared about democracy, how about the time mass murderer/crimes against humanity suharto attended an apec pacific trade conference at ubc, eh??? amerika installs dictators and removes them if they no longer lick yankee boots. i am ashamed that lapdog harper attended the 911 anniversary memorial in the big rotten apple to spew more lies about the truth of this inside job to launch imperial wars of aggression, from afghanistan, iraq and now libya.

would you clarify?

"And nobody here has ever heard of rendition, where would be revolutionaries were sent to friendly countries like Libya for enhanced re education."

What are you saying here? I do not get your point. Are you criticising authorities for sending people to a country you just elaborated on the humanitarian qualities of? Why would it be bad to be 'rendered' to Libya, if it is everything you say it is? It ought to be better than any American lockup then, right? Or is that another 'minutia'?

point?

Are you saying that Libya must be terrible since our secret police would send our prisoners there? Doesn't that go both ways?

American lockups: today's "age of enlightenment" Royal Navy press.

Life is not all a bed of roses over there surely, but relatively speaking there are many many people in the world much more in need of our help. And I mean help as in the opposite of bravely slaughtering people with 500 lb bombs from untouchable jets, all so that the old thugs can be replaced with the new thugs.

hughstimson ... wrong

I'm not going to praise Gadhafi. A dictator, yes. Better then some, worse then others. But this wasn't a populous uprising like Tunisia or Egypt where thousands gathered daily in city squares. This started with an attack on a military base, weapons seized, soldiers killed, etc.. Gadhafi responded in kind. The same response that one would hope to happen in this country if one of our bases were "invaded". I won't repeat the positives that Gadhafi did for his country, except to add that when he took power in a coup, from a "King", Libya was ranked as the poorest country in the world. They've come a long way. Too bad the govt. of this country (a kinder, gentler dictatorship) didn't have the foresight (and balls) to nationalize our resources so Canadian society could reap the benefits. Oh, but that's the kicker. This isn't about society. Just like what will unfold in Libya, it's all about a transfer of wealth.

skywalker

Oh....that.

"Oil" is getting to be such a mundane excuse, don't ya think?

Thank you very much for this informative . .

. . and frank piece of journalism, the likes of which is sorely absent from main(?) stream media.
Yes, this fits right in with the criminal cabal in charge of washington[sic] and the un[sic,sic].
Unfortunately not many people will read this and even fewer would be interested enough to think about the true meaning of these sad affairs.
WE ARE ALL UNDER SIEGE!

hughstimson, there are no JUST wars

All wars are a crime, no matter how you parade them about or dress them up. Barbarism comes to mind.

"...the old, familiar battle between force and human imagination, between the crude instruments of violence and the capacity for empathy and understanding. Human imagination lost. Coldblooded reason, which does not speak the language of the imagination, won. We began to speak and think in the empty, mindless nationalist clichés about terror that the state handed to us..."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/11-7

How some people can behave exactly like their enemies but then insist on the higher moral ground is one of the most stupifying questions we face.

Neo-Tankie

So a dictator who has socialised medicine is ok? Despite his support of terrorism abroad and murdering his own people? What sort of leftist supports dictators against a democracy movement? Stalinists I suppose. . . .

Also Libya was selling the west and east as much oil as it could so the "its about oil" line is ridiculous. Get a new mantra for christ sakes.

Finally it is just a little dishonest to write such an article without mentioning the request for intervention by the Arab League (to avoid a Syria like slaughter) and the vote taken by the UNSC, but when you fit the facts to your prior Ideological view that is to be expected .

Tankies

"Libya is contained and selling us oil. Most of their terrorism is aimed at their own citizens these days and so what if the header is planning a dynastic power transition. Leave them alone to crush a democratic rebellion." This is the sort of reasoning Dobbin is using and so would Henry Kissinger. Pathetic.

How can you write a piece about this subject and leave out the Arab League request and the UNSC authorization?

Gray has failed to look

at the reflection in the mirror of his/her own nation.

QUOTE:

So a dictator who has socialised medicine is ok? Despite his support of terrorism abroad and murdering his own people? What sort of leftist supports dictators against a democracy movement? Stalinists I suppose. . . .

Nobody supports, nor brings, terrorism abroad more than the American Empire, fully supported by our own Canadian government.

Perhaps you've heard about our involvement in Central America and the slaughtering of the Jesuit Priests (but one of many examples)?? My gosh, there is little contempt for democratic principles more profound and hypocritical than that of our country, Canada, and America. And nobody props up a dictator like the USA provided that dictator is obedient to the interests of the Empire.

I'd cite reputable sources but what would be the point?

wrong bad guy

The U.S. didn't want Gadh gone. He is one of the old guard installed and propped up by the U.S that are very much supported by the West. (think Gulf States and Mubarak etc.) The U.S. has quickly got the picture that the mideast spring means an increase in "Islamicism" and tried to throttle back the Libya mission, as did Italy, whose proximity means much more peril than to the Nordic front.
No, the perpetrators of this war are the right wing leaders of NATO....Rasmussen, Sarkozy, Harper etc., and their motives are more to do with xenophobia and religous intolerance.
No Murray, it's not the U.S. doing this, it's us, or more specifically YOU!

an interesting perspective

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPmtaHGYmvI

The Point Missed by The True Believers of The Status Quo ...

"I'm not going to praise Qaddafi. A dictator, yes. Better then some, worse then others." the real ODB

Which is the point missed by such carte blanche "true believers" of the status quo as Dorothy... and the "White guilt" narrative of such as MichaelT in an earlier thread. (Which is a "White" supremest choice of language, in my view.)

Because one is opposed to the Empire military intervention in Libya (And by the by, renditions to there by the CIA for "torture" purposes. Defended by Cheney.), does not mean any particular value judgement about Qaddafi at all. The point is, that meting out armed "justice" to Qaddafi or ANY of this crop of hereto US propped up dictators in the Middle East, is a matter purely for the Libyan and Arab people... in their own good time.

These so-called "humanitarian missions", such as we have observed here and elsewhere, are really more a cover for Western "imperialist interests and ambitions", and by now there is no excuse outside simple ignorance or blind faith, for not knowing this. The history has been long and extensive enough.

The only way THIS country, Canada, is ever going to get to a place where WE can safely and peacefully carry out the radical social changes that need to be made here, in our democratic, sovereignty and "rounded development", non -resource export dependent economic interest, is that a firm policy of strict "non-interference" be in place, governing international relations of ALL State and countries. The Security State of Capitalism now being put in place by the major imperial powers, with a policy of their exclusive right to interfere in other country's affairs as they please, is a threat to ourselves no less than any other country.

And that our ruling economic class and its political elites have chosen to defend and act with this Western Empire imperial interest in the world, is more in their own class survival and power interests as a bootlick quasi-colonial serving appendage, than what serves the present and future national interest of a truly independent Canada.

It is time... nay, past time, to deal with this US Empire wannabe serving Harper regime, and all who would maintain our subservient current economic and political position.

Stewing about Libya?

Why? The US and Britain are still operating the real fascists in Saudi Arabia and the remaining Gilf States with any oil at all (which means "not Dubai"). Just as they have for 100 years. We can have our petty revolutions as long as we all obey when the Big Cheese tells us to settle down.

HughStimson, a sense of scale of injustice is missing from your thoughts. I would encourage you to read a wider range of sources.

Sharia Law in Libya

The National Transitional Council, the new governing body taking over in Libya, which is supported by Harper is going to base all legislation on Sharia Law.

"TRIPOLI, LIBYA (Catholic Online) - Cheering crowds greeted the speech in Libya's Martyr's Square, as the largest public gathering of the National Transitional Council (NTC) since the fall of Tripoli took place. Abdul-Jalil, who is the current head of the NTC, was formerly Gaddafi's minister of justice before he defected to the rebels at the start of the uprising. He pledged, "We strive for a state of the law, for a state of prosperity, for a state that will have Islamic sharia law the basis of legislation."

Sharia is the basis of law for several countries including Saudi Arabia and Iran, and is practiced in a variety of Islamic enclaves throughout the world. It is notable for its typically severe punishments for crimes such as theft, and adultery."

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=42790

Didn't Harper just warn us about Islamicism?