AFRICOM Goes To War In Africa

The US Africa Command is now at war on the continent of Africa. And not surprising, the war is about oil.

“R2P” – Responsibility to Protect – is the Obama regime's favored formula for pouring mud in the otherwise clear waters of international law. The philosophy – actually, a political position seeking legal recognition – amounts to a kind of super-power judicial waiver couched in the language of nobles oblige, the obligation of the strong to help the weak. In the real world, the strong only help themselves – in this case, to Libya's oil reserves, the largest in Africa. (Glen Ford)

MEDITERRANEAN SEA - Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stout (DDG 55) launches a Tomahawk missile in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn on March 19, 2011. This was one of approximately 110 cruise missiles fired from U.S. and British ships and submarines that targeted about 20 radar and anti-aircraft sites along Libya's Mediterranean coast. Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn is the U.S. Africa Command task force established to provide operational and tactical command and control of U.S. military forces supporting the international response to the unrest in Libya and enforcement of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1973. UNSCR 1973 authorizes "all necessary measures" to protect civilians in Libya under threat of attack by Qadhafi regime forces. JTF Odyssey Dawn is commanded by U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear, III. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Nathan Pappas) (20110320132841)

The US is starting its war from its seabase, as in the pictures above.

Libya is among the World's largest oil economies with approximately 3.5% of global oil reserves, more than twice those of the US.

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An invasion of Libya under a humanitarian mandate would serve the same corporate interests as the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. The underlying objective is to take possession of Libya's oil reserves, destabilize the National Oil Corporation (NOC) and eventually privatize the country's oil industry, namely transfer the control and ownership of Libya's oil wealth into foreign hands.

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Libya is a Prize Economy. "War is good for business". Oil is the trophy of US-NATO led wars.

Wall Street, the Anglo-American oil giants, the US-EU weapons producers would be the unspoken beneficiaries of a US-NATO led military campaign directed against Libya. (Michel Chossudovsky)

MEDITERRANEAN SEA - Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph Fremen, with Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 22, calibrates the forward looking infrared (FLIR) system of a MH-60S Knight Hawk helicopter on the flight deck of amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn, March 19, 2011. The FLIR system allows pilots a 360-degree view of the area surrounding the helicopter. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Scott Pittman) (20110320131427)

here was francis boyle on the kpfa program letters and politics friday morning (starting at 18:20 in)

if you read the [UN] resolution carefully, effectively it authorizes all-out warfare by the United States, Britain, France, any NATO states that want to join in against Libya, basically to steal their oil. I really think that's what's going on here....

It authorizes air strikes, drone strikes, cruise missile attacks on ground targets. The only thing that is expressly excluded is a foreign military occupation force, but that is a carefully drafted distinction from an invading force. When the United States invaded Haiti in 1994 it had 24,000 troops there in Haiti. We always maintained that this was

not a foreign military occupation force. So there is legally a distinction between invading and occupying. So technically, under this resolution, even ground troops can be deployed to Libya.

The workings of the imperial brain are plainly visible in the output of the corporate press, which act as ventriloquist dummies to power. Suddenly, the media have all undergone a crash course in the intractable nature of Libyan tribal politics – a subject until now totally unknown to the western press. After a quick education from the State Department and designated think tankers, corporate media dutifully prepare the public for the possible drawing of an American “line in the sand” somewhere before the gates of Benghazi [see the oil map below]…

“The West is clearly considering the 'option' of partitioning Libya.”

Western reporters, who are such quick studies when it comes to tribalisms and other perceived pathologies of exotic, non-western peoples, have not yet figured out who the rebels are, politically.

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The western media, and the governments they serve, are caught in crossfire of contradictions. The U.S. wants desperately to position itself on the “right” side of some aspect of the unfolding Arab Reawakening. The West dearly wishes to appropriate to itself a section of the “Arab revolt,” so as to bomb an evil “dictator” on their behalf. The western media's job is to do the public relations work, presenting these “pro-western” combatants in the most attractive light. However, it appears the media are having trouble packaging the Libyan rebels as sufficiently virtuous “freedom fighters” – one suspects because, on closer inspection, many turn out to be fundamentalists or tribalists.

… the merest presence of Islamic fundamentalist fighters would have, in previous times, been reason for a U.S. attack and invasion – against those harboring such elements. (Glen Ford)

Libyan oil permits, oil fields, and pipelines.

Partition and dismemberment of countries with independent governments has been a strategy that the U.S., British and French governments employed in the Kurdish region of Iraq after the 1991 war, in Yugoslavia in the mid-1990's, and recently in Sudan, which until January was Africa's largest country. Of course, the biggest prize for imperialist expansion through the act of dismemberment was the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. For decades during the so-called Cold War the U.S. government, and especially the Central Intelligence Agency, crusaded on behalf of the “captive nations” of the Soviet Union. Its break-up was immediately followed by the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the incorporation of the western and southern republics of the former Soviet Union into the U.S. sphere of influence.

The breakup or de facto partition of Libya would be a great historical tragedy for the people, but would become a boon for all of the western oil giants.

At the very moment that the UN Security Council condemned the Gaddafi government for the use of violence against the armed rebels in Libya, a U.S.-backed violent suppression of peaceful protestors was underway in Bahrain and Yemen. Today, in response to the killing of more than 40 unarmed protesters in Yemen, the White House statement urged “peaceful, orderly” dialogue, and “an open and transparent process.” The difference is that the Bahraini and Saudi monarchies, and the Yemeni government, exist as client dictatorships of the United States. (Brian Becker)

You can see in the last map just above, of oil permits, fields, and pipelines, that the majority of the permits and the pipelines are on the eastern side of Libya, south of Benghazi, the stronghold of the rebels. These rebels are the US chosen good guys. Keep in mind these "good guys" are prominent among those harassing and killing African migrants in Libya.

The Africa Command in Libya is engaging in imperial acquisition by calling it humanitarian. “They”, Africans, in this case Libyans, are helpless and dangerous, so “we” need to use guns to help them. Just as with other African countries, Libya is treated as a place without history or context, its politics and history characterized only as inexplicable tribal rivalries. This is only the beginning of the more condescension and more war promised by AFRICOM's General Ham

Originating at crossedcrocodiles.wordpress.com