As NATO Ends Libyan Bombing Campaign, Is the US Seeking Greater Military Control of Africa?

[The Northerner]

Run time: 09:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuZFZviEe8g   Posted on YouTube: November 01, 2011 By YouTube Member: democracynow Views on YouTube: 108   Posted on DU: November 01, 2011 By DU Member: The Northerner Views on DU: 1378

 
www.DemocracyNow.org - NATO ended its bombing campaign in Libya on Monday. Over the past seven months, NATO aircraft conducted more than 26,500 sorties, including 9,700 strike missions. NATO said it bombed 5,900 military targets inside the country. While NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen hailed the campaign as a success, many analysts say NATO's intensive bombing campaign violated its U.N. mandate. "The role that NATO played in Libya has been a very, very problematic one, a very troubled one, and ultimately, it is going to have a very long-term, deleterious impact on Libya's future," says Phyllis Bennis, a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, on Democracy Now! Nov. 1. "The notion that the NATO bombings somehow was to do nothing but protect civilians is simply not the case." Bennis said the Libyan revolution began as part of the Arab Spring, but the NATO intervention turned it into a "Western assault on another North African, Middle Eastern, Arab country." She also expresses alarm over the rising U.S. military presence in Africa. "Despite efforts to claim Africom is really about healthcare and AIDS education and women's rights to be carried out by the U.S. military, we have a very serious reality that Africa provides more oil to the United States than the entire Middle East."

[KansDem]

1. I heard this interview this a.m.

I found this statement quite revealing: Despite efforts to claim Africom is really about healthcare and AIDS education and women's rights to be carried out by the U.S. military...

"Social justice" and "health care" are such priorities for the US military!! :crazy:

[Marazinia]

2. Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa

Genocide in other parts of Africa? Eh, whatever. They don't care. They just want the oil and whatever countries have it they're going to either invade or install regimes that will sell it to them.

[tabatha]

4. The US buys almost nothing from Libya.

[Marazinia]

5. Are you truly trying to say that the US isn't trying to gain control over oil supplies?

What the US imports now and from where isn't the only issue. Future supplies are an issue, too. In fact, they'd be foolish not to consider future sources, although I don't say they should be going to war over them. But they do.

[tabatha]

6. Yes.

[liberation]

12. This was a NATO Operation, not just the US

Many EU countries import a lot of oil from Libya.

If you think this intervention has nothing to do with control of resources, then you have to riddle me why worse humanitarian crises, in the same continent, have gone unattended by NATO.


This was a civil war, and NATO simply took the side they calculated would enable future access to resources. Nothing more, nothing less. Some of the hardliners in the rebel camp are already trying to push sharia law, so clearly the "freedom and well being" of the average Libyan was not at the top of the priorities list for NATO.

[tabatha]

3. Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries

August 2011 Import Highlights: Released October 28, 2011

Monthly data on the origins of crude oil imports in August 2011 has been released and it shows that three countries exported more than 1,000 thousand barrels per day to the United States (see table below). The top five exporting countries accounted for 68 percent of United States crude oil imports in August while the top ten sources accounted for approximately 89 percent of all U.S. crude oil imports. The top five sources of US crude oil imports for August were Canada (2,240 thousand barrels per day), Mexico (1,150 thousand barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1,075 thousand barrels per day), Nigeria (854 thousand barrels per day), and Venezuela (806 thousand barrels per day). The rest of the top ten sources, in order, were Iraq (637 thousand barrels per day), Colombia (365 thousand barrels per day), Angola (311 thousand barrels per day), Ecuador (303 thousand barrels per day), and Russia (252 thousand barrels per day). Total crude oil imports averaged 9,021 thousand barrels per day in August, which is a decrease of (288) thousand barrels per day from July 2011.

Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum in August, exporting 2,637 thousand barrels per day to the United States, which is an increase from last month (2,626 thousand barrels per day). The second largest exporter of total petroleum was Mexico with 1,185 thousand barrels per day.

Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries)
(Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country Aug-11 Jul-11 YTD 2011 Aug-10 YTD 2010
CANADA 2,240 2,188 2,136 1,935 1,976
MEXICO 1,150 1,119 1,115 1,168 1,135
SAUDI ARABIA 1,075 1,307 1,145 1,080 1,071
NIGERIA 854 818 862 942 1,007
VENEZUELA 806 877 910 974 929
IRAQ 637 596 481 281 469
COLOMBIA 365 398 346 346 331
ANGOLA 311 394 328 472 414
ECUADOR 303 172 191 270 213
RUSSIA 252 202 242 334 296
BRAZIL 213 310 232 249 281
KUWAIT 165 222 167 251 208
ALGERIA 140 184 212 374 334
CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE) 66 36 62 98 78
OMAN 52 52 35 0 0

Total Imports of Petroleum (Top 15 Countries)
(Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country Aug-11 Jul-11 YTD 2011 Aug-10 YTD 2010
CANADA 2,637 2,626 2,650 2,489 2,544
MEXICO 1,185 1,197 1,222 1,282 1,260
SAUDI ARABIA 1,075 1,326 1,151 1,132 1,086
VENEZUELA 906 943 1,001 1,022 1,007
NIGERIA 892 884 912 985 1,038
IRAQ 637 596 481 281 469
RUSSIA 585 562 611 786 621
COLOMBIA 395 415 378 372 359
ANGOLA 331 407 339 484 423
ECUADOR 309 172 192 276 215
ALGERIA 298 354 409 565 509
BRAZIL 228 329 246 251 302
VIRGIN ISLANDS 185 192 189 301 256
KUWAIT 165 228 168 251 210
UNITED KINGDOM 125 175 167 266 290

More oil is imported from the ME than Africa.

I wish the US would get out of Nigeria because they are screwing up the country environmentally.

I doubt that the Obama administration is interested in Africa for oil, as he is promoting clean energy.

[stockholmer]

7. I dont know if it has changed, but in 2005 & 2006, the US imported more oil from Africa than the ME

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/features/2007/untapped_the_scramble_for_africas_oil/does_africa_measure_up_to_the_hype.html

http://farmfutures.com/story.aspx?s=28741&c=17

http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-04-30-africa-oil-usat_x.htm

[tabatha]

11. The numbers quoted above are from 2011. Do the math.

[cprise]

8. As long as we force most oil producers to price their oil in US dollars

...then it doesn't matter if we physically get oil from them or not. The rest of the world will have to pay for oil in USD, making them desperate to provide us with goods, materials and services so they can get the dollars to keep their energy flowing. It is called the 'petrodollar' regime and it is how the establishment maintains the US dollar as the world's reserve currency.

As long as the world needs oil and people need dollars to get the oil, the US elite can do whatever they want to other countries financially, culturally, militarily with impunity.

Libya was moving away from the USD and working to move all of Africa to a new gold-backed currency before the invasion. Iraq had switched their oil pricing (and banking reserves) to the Euro in 2000. Any country with significant natural resource exports that demands a currency other than USD becomes a target for regime change.

[Marazinia]

9. I did forget about that important detail

I wonder how much longer they can force that, though?

[tabatha]

10. I read a commentary by a Libyan who said that the gold claim

in an insult to all who died for their freedom.

I guess the US was responsible for the Tunisian man setting himself alight, for the Egyptian uprising, which inspired the Libyans to rise on Feb 17. But was preceded by the Feb 15th uprising by mostly women in Benghazi who demonstrated because the Libyan lawyer, who was investigating the Abu Salim massacre, was jailed.

And the Libyans then fought and were almost winning by themselves - they stated from the start that they wanted to do it by themselves - until Gaddafi brought out his heavy weapons and was going to flatten Benghazi as he did Zawiya and other towns.

Yup, right. All of the freedom fighters died in their thousands because of a gold-backed currency.

I'll try to find the article, but it is probably deep into the Libyan threads.

--------------------

It is interesting that there are no prominent Libyan activists speaking out on behalf of Gaddafi, or even against Nato intervention. Surely, if this was all a huge imperialist conspiracy one Libyan would have been found in the West to speak out? Well, unlike the many activists who now imagine they are speaking for ordinary Libyans, or the global South, Libyans actually know their country and their history, and they know that Gaddafi had to go, whatever the cost.

For the anti-imperialists are just as much at fault as any right-wing nationalist in perceiving everything in the non-Western world through a Western lens. Those criticising the war against Gaddafi have viewed the whole conflict through the prism of Nato intervention, forgetting the huge legitimate grievances of the Libyan people. It is insulting to the memory of the tens of thousands killed by the Gaddafi regime to talk about the whole affair as some sort of plot to prevent Gaddafi from using gold currency instead of dollars – the fact that this argument supposes that Gaddafi is some sort of economic revolutionary shows how preposterous it is. As bizarre as this might seem to people who only view the world with Western eyes, the people of the ‘East’ actually would like to be free from their homegrown dictators. Hey, some of them may even prefer capitalism to the bizarre ramblings of a madman obsessed with the colour green. The internal oppressor for the people of Libya was far worse than any external oppressor in the form of Nato.

http://feb17.info/news/gaddafi-libya-through-western-eyes/