Also, something-something, mumble-mumble, Libya.
Christ, what an asshole. (That'd be man of constant nothing, John McCain.)
We also commend our British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE, for their leadership in this conflict. Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.
3: this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.
If only Reagan had had the power to do so in 1986!
I still think American involvement was a mistake -- and I don't think the Franco-Italian brain trust expected the six months it took of escalating special forces intervention -- but I guess this is an okay outcome if we don't hang around. I fully expect the usual suspects to point to the relative success of the Libyan intervention as a reason we now have to invade Iran or, if Obama is a pussy who is afraid of the mullahs, Syria.
Also, color me shocked that we're up to no good in Colombia. (Has the full story on American support for the abortive coup against Chavez in Venezuela ever come out? Hugo is an authoritarian dingus, but so is Otto Reich.)
Dear Libya,
"One of these days we're going to chop you into little pieces."
4: I agree with John Cole's reservations here.
And I will endeavor in the future to use the Preview button before hitting Post.
I think that this post is a good summary.
Now that I read the linked article, I feel bad for giving it the Fresh Salt treatment. It is very good.
I find myself generally agreeing with Cole, except for a single point: I don't think it was about oil for the Europeans (or us). If Gaddafi had beaten back the rebellion, before western intervention, he'd have kept selling oil to the Europeans as before.
He's certainly right about the potential harm posed by Obama's expressed contempt for the WPA and the power to declare war. Which, as Justice Jackson would say, will sit around like a loaded gun waiting for the next guy.
OP: U.S. officials have denied knowledge of or involvement in illegal acts committed by the DAS,
It's always intriguing that the government employs people for the express purpose of figuring out what's going on in Country X, and yet those people are always the last to hear about what is actually happening in Country X. All of this Colombia stuff has been common knowledge for a long time. 'How many ears must one man have...'
hmmm, Libya
12.1 is correct
Does it change my opinion that we know literally nothing about the rebels who appear to be winning? No.
Well, Richard Seymour aka Lenin ...is engaged in a big nasty argument about that with his commenters, mainly about whether there is any hope for a future that isn't neo-liberal and controlled by Empire. They know more than I do. So does Juan Cole, if you haven't read him. Proyect knows a little.
Libya is Free It must be occupied ...reference the above, it appears that the neo-liberal puppet may not actually be able to control Libya without NATO assistance.
donbacon ... at FDL says Libya not about oil, but about banking and currency
In a 2007 "Democracy Now" interview of US General Wesley Clark (Ret). In it he says that about 10 days after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Clark was surprised and asked why. "I don't know!" was the response. "I guess they don't know what else to do!" Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.
The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that "[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar."
March 21, Bloomberg:
The Council also said it "designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi."
Aug 1, 2011
Africa's curse of gold and oil
By Brian E Muhammad (extracts)'Gaddafi's creation of the African Investment Bank in Sirte (Libya) and the African Monetary Fund to be based in Cameroon will supplant the IMF and undermine Western economic hegemony in Africa,' said Gerald Pereira, an executive board member of the former Tripoli-based World Mathaba.
In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
I don't suppose there's any chance that the phrase "spurious correlation" pops-up anywhere in the linked article.
If Gaddafi had beaten back the rebellion, before western intervention, he'd have kept selling oil to the Europeans as before.
That's true, but I don't think Libya's first-mover as far as oil-embargoing/nationalization is forgotten either.
18:My sentiments exactly. I am not taking it that seriously.
More interested in an imperialism of labor arbitrage than either oil or reserve currency. Or sumpin. Oil is boring.
Did someone ring for childish antics?