When has WWIII started? Then, that is, pick your date after 9/11/2001. How the other(s) may get involved? Oil/vital resources.
Did Qaddafi indicate a change of taste from western to eastern currencies in exchange for the Libyan oil?
Libyan Historical Echoes
Libya has over 140 tribes and is a colonial construct cobbled together by the Italians from Fezzan (the south), Tripolitania (the west) and Cyrenaica (the east) using concentration camps (Suluq, Al-Maghroun, Al-Abiyar and Al-Agheila), by executing its religious and political leaders (Omar Mukhtar), and by manipulating various civil wars as they broke out. Just as with Iraq and the others, pundits, media and governments and those pandering to them, project their own false reality on the situation – its easy to invent “we are one country and one people all wanting the same thing but terrorized by a tyrant.” But the shallowness of that protestation becomes immediately evident the second a victory seems imminent. Then, opponents are not countrymen, but “rats” to be exterminated. Those actually familiar with that region and its history and its people, on the other hand, point out that this is just another chapter in a long history of civil wars between Benghazi (Cyrenaica) and Tripolitania. For some reason, NATO countries orchestrated a victory for Cyrenaica, so the tribes of the East will now prosper at the expense of all others. Ghadaffi is, after all, the name of a Tripolitanian tribe, not just that of a man or a family. Democracy demands that each region choose whether it would like to be part of a greater Libya and, if so, how to insure the rights and equal participation of all, with particular sensitivity to the weaker tribes of the former Fezzan to the South and the tribes just crushed by NATO. But there is no reasonable expectation this should come to pass after a war that caused more death than it prevented and that had no believable objective directed towards building a pluralistic society.
________
From the above comment, one gets the idea that, in the good British imperial tradition, Libya will enjoy a precarious stability, at best. Hot peace can be maintained for now (read, as long as the rate on US Treasuries is low). The Russians are happy to see their oil-income go up amid instability in the oil-exporting countries. The Chinese interests will have to be factored in the Libyan peace as well. Whom should we invoice for the target practice? BTW, Bush's Mission Accomplished moment is being mirrored when they want us to think it's over in some quarter of the Arab Spring. Has anyone heard the Fat Lady?
No comments:
Post a Comment