- Excerpt GEAB N°54 (April 16, 2011) -
In January 2011, in GEAB N°51, LEAP/E2020 anticipated that 2011 would be a ruthless year, especially for those who weren’t prepared for further shocks from the global systemic crisis, having spent two years in trying to treat the symptoms instead of causes of the crisis. Military intervention in Libya seems emblematic of this situation because it involves a set of participants who are not prepared for the changes brought about by the crisis and who are trying to respond in a confused and therefore dangerous manner.
Indeed, involving the short-termism of a crumbling empire (USA), its supporter trying to survive (UK) and a power in the midst of strategic mistakes (France), at the heart of a region in the middle of historic upheaval with major geopolitical consequences, and involving emerging powers which themselves are playing for the long term, this Franco-American-British intervention in Libya is, for LEAP/E2020 therefore, a glaring illustration of this January 2011 anticipation as well as a powerful boost to the process of global geopolitical dislocation (1).
In this issue, our team has therefore chosen to analyze the context of, and the participants in, the conflict and ultimately draw up a list of ten breakdowns and emerging global trends that the Libyan conflict is setting in motion.
Indeed, involving the short-termism of a crumbling empire (USA), its supporter trying to survive (UK) and a power in the midst of strategic mistakes (France), at the heart of a region in the middle of historic upheaval with major geopolitical consequences, and involving emerging powers which themselves are playing for the long term, this Franco-American-British intervention in Libya is, for LEAP/E2020 therefore, a glaring illustration of this January 2011 anticipation as well as a powerful boost to the process of global geopolitical dislocation (1).
In this issue, our team has therefore chosen to analyze the context of, and the participants in, the conflict and ultimately draw up a list of ten breakdowns and emerging global trends that the Libyan conflict is setting in motion.
The true context of the Libyan conflict is very different from that presented by the French, British and American leadership and media
First of all, let’s take the time to dwell on the context and the participants in this conflict.
The context is that of grassroots Arab revolutions that began with Tunisia at the end of 2010 and which have gradually extended to almost all Arab countries with varying results. In GEAB N°52 in our analysis on "The fall of the petro-dollar wall", we presented a summary guideline of our anticipation of Arab revolutions with Libya appearing in category 3: “Countries where the regimes could hold in check, including by violence, the attempts at change at least until the end of 2012”. In this category, Libya stands alongside Algeria, Syria and Saudi Arabia, three countries that are also seeing grassroots protest movements. But our team is confident that neither France, nor the United Kingdom, nor the United States will launch any military action to "defend the civilian population" or "accelerate the change of regime towards democracy”, for the following reasons:
. too large a population
. regimes whose destabilization is dangerous for the West
. potentially « explosive » regional implications
. major logistic hurdles
. a difficult media preparation for people in the West
. certain opposition of some major non-Western powers to any UN support
. a very uncertain military outcome
. major immediate impact on world oil and gas prices.
This difference in treatment between the Libyan case and the three other Arab countries which present similar politico-democratic problems, already provides an initial explanation for military operations in Libya: it was undertaken because it appeared politically, technically and militarily possible with the least risk, which would not be so in the case of intervention in any of the other three countries in this category.
In fact, the Libyan dictator is a veteran of UN sanctions. He is a character already demonized in the Western media (2). He is unpredictable and arrogant and not liked by any major world power. His country is large but sparsely populated. It offers an ideal topography to conduct air strikes. It has a lot of oil, in a region traditionally hostile to the country’s central power. In short, it is the ideal target for military action "at little cost" with the benefit of international legitimacy (3).
The only downside is that, despite such a pedigree, he had become a "friend" of the West in recent years - the obligations of oil! So when major universal principles are suddenly waved to legitimize military action (4), lucidity (an essential quality for any political anticipation work) requires a questioning of the new official line from Paris, Washington and London that we can decipher as follows:
“The Libyan people (whom Washington, London and Paris completely spurned a few weeks earlier) are brutally attacked by a despicable dictator (that Paris, for example, welcomed with full honours barely two years ago); the democracies (on this occasion a kind of mini-NATO) must urgently protect the Libyan people in revolt (of whom nobody ever sees pictures (5) - even in cities like Benghazi (6) of which Gaddafi has lost control - unlike the crowds seen in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, ...) from mass killings perpetrated by the Libyan dictator (here again, no pictures, no evidence (7)); the revolutionaries have, moreover, formed an alternative government to Benghazi to which legitimacy must urgently be given (without really knowing who makes it up apart from Qaddafi’s former interior minister, Abdel Fattah Younis - certainly a great democrat - and a few migrants in London and the United States who spent decades in exile (8)). All those who are against such intervention are a choice of:
. irresponsible pacifists
. the dictator’s accomplices
. traitors of Western solidarity
. gravediggers of democracy”.
In summary, it is a type of speech straight out of the propaganda textbooks of "Gulf Wars 1 and 2”, supported by a media tsunami (especially in France (9)) without any attempt at objectivity: the citizens are ordered to approve, not to think.
The passing days have quickly shown:
. that the Libyan people were not revolting to that extent since the rebels have proved incapable of advancing beyond Benghazi without massive Franco-Anglo-American support
. that the so-called rebels were more like comedy-theatre revolutionaries than fierce fighters (10)
. that the US, British and French secret services were operating in Libya even before the official "triggering" of the rebellion (11)
. that support for the Washington/Paris/London attack by Arab or African countries (12) were either virtually non-existent or outright uncertain
. that a large part of the « West » (Germany, Poland (13), …) continued to be opposed to this military intervention
. that, after a few days, the promise of victory was in the course of becoming bogged down in a lasting conflict
. that Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama didn’t have a plan B if their aerial "blitzkrieg" failed (14)
. that the situation was a source of major geopolitical risks for Europe and the Arab world.
Therefore the context of this conflict is proving, according to LEAP/E2020, very different from that being spouted for the last month by the French, British and American leaders and media. This leads us to question the exact nature of the participants and their interaction in order to identify the trends at work at the core of this important event of global geopolitical dislocation.
The context is that of grassroots Arab revolutions that began with Tunisia at the end of 2010 and which have gradually extended to almost all Arab countries with varying results. In GEAB N°52 in our analysis on "The fall of the petro-dollar wall", we presented a summary guideline of our anticipation of Arab revolutions with Libya appearing in category 3: “Countries where the regimes could hold in check, including by violence, the attempts at change at least until the end of 2012”. In this category, Libya stands alongside Algeria, Syria and Saudi Arabia, three countries that are also seeing grassroots protest movements. But our team is confident that neither France, nor the United Kingdom, nor the United States will launch any military action to "defend the civilian population" or "accelerate the change of regime towards democracy”, for the following reasons:
. too large a population
. regimes whose destabilization is dangerous for the West
. potentially « explosive » regional implications
. major logistic hurdles
. a difficult media preparation for people in the West
. certain opposition of some major non-Western powers to any UN support
. a very uncertain military outcome
. major immediate impact on world oil and gas prices.
This difference in treatment between the Libyan case and the three other Arab countries which present similar politico-democratic problems, already provides an initial explanation for military operations in Libya: it was undertaken because it appeared politically, technically and militarily possible with the least risk, which would not be so in the case of intervention in any of the other three countries in this category.
In fact, the Libyan dictator is a veteran of UN sanctions. He is a character already demonized in the Western media (2). He is unpredictable and arrogant and not liked by any major world power. His country is large but sparsely populated. It offers an ideal topography to conduct air strikes. It has a lot of oil, in a region traditionally hostile to the country’s central power. In short, it is the ideal target for military action "at little cost" with the benefit of international legitimacy (3).
The only downside is that, despite such a pedigree, he had become a "friend" of the West in recent years - the obligations of oil! So when major universal principles are suddenly waved to legitimize military action (4), lucidity (an essential quality for any political anticipation work) requires a questioning of the new official line from Paris, Washington and London that we can decipher as follows:
“The Libyan people (whom Washington, London and Paris completely spurned a few weeks earlier) are brutally attacked by a despicable dictator (that Paris, for example, welcomed with full honours barely two years ago); the democracies (on this occasion a kind of mini-NATO) must urgently protect the Libyan people in revolt (of whom nobody ever sees pictures (5) - even in cities like Benghazi (6) of which Gaddafi has lost control - unlike the crowds seen in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, ...) from mass killings perpetrated by the Libyan dictator (here again, no pictures, no evidence (7)); the revolutionaries have, moreover, formed an alternative government to Benghazi to which legitimacy must urgently be given (without really knowing who makes it up apart from Qaddafi’s former interior minister, Abdel Fattah Younis - certainly a great democrat - and a few migrants in London and the United States who spent decades in exile (8)). All those who are against such intervention are a choice of:
. irresponsible pacifists
. the dictator’s accomplices
. traitors of Western solidarity
. gravediggers of democracy”.
In summary, it is a type of speech straight out of the propaganda textbooks of "Gulf Wars 1 and 2”, supported by a media tsunami (especially in France (9)) without any attempt at objectivity: the citizens are ordered to approve, not to think.
The passing days have quickly shown:
. that the Libyan people were not revolting to that extent since the rebels have proved incapable of advancing beyond Benghazi without massive Franco-Anglo-American support
. that the so-called rebels were more like comedy-theatre revolutionaries than fierce fighters (10)
. that the US, British and French secret services were operating in Libya even before the official "triggering" of the rebellion (11)
. that support for the Washington/Paris/London attack by Arab or African countries (12) were either virtually non-existent or outright uncertain
. that a large part of the « West » (Germany, Poland (13), …) continued to be opposed to this military intervention
. that, after a few days, the promise of victory was in the course of becoming bogged down in a lasting conflict
. that Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama didn’t have a plan B if their aerial "blitzkrieg" failed (14)
. that the situation was a source of major geopolitical risks for Europe and the Arab world.
Therefore the context of this conflict is proving, according to LEAP/E2020, very different from that being spouted for the last month by the French, British and American leaders and media. This leads us to question the exact nature of the participants and their interaction in order to identify the trends at work at the core of this important event of global geopolitical dislocation.
All the participants in the Libyan conflict belong to the « world before the crisis »
On the Libyan side we find:
. an ageing, traditionally anti-Western dictator (15)
. his family and clannish circle
. a police state
. African mercenaries
. oil and a small population (6.5 million inhabitants)
. large financial reserves
. a society marked by strong tribal allegiances
. an Eastern region (Cyrenaica) culturally close to Egypt and a Western region (Tripolitania) with close links to Tunisia
. a people long cut off from any interaction with the rest of the world due to an intellectual self-sufficiency cultivated by the regime, aided by United Nations embargoes (especially from 1992 to 1999, due to the direct involvement of the Libyan regime in various attacks)
. rebels of an unknown quantity, bringing together defectors from the current regime, Islamic militants, private citizens (16) and agents of various Western services (American, British and French for the most part) and probably of Arab countries
. and, to complete this quick picture, a population with the highest living standards in Africa according to theUnited Nations 2010 Human Development Index and major grassroots development projects in Libya such as the « Great Man-Made River (17) » (18).
. an ageing, traditionally anti-Western dictator (15)
. his family and clannish circle
. a police state
. African mercenaries
. oil and a small population (6.5 million inhabitants)
. large financial reserves
. a society marked by strong tribal allegiances
. an Eastern region (Cyrenaica) culturally close to Egypt and a Western region (Tripolitania) with close links to Tunisia
. a people long cut off from any interaction with the rest of the world due to an intellectual self-sufficiency cultivated by the regime, aided by United Nations embargoes (especially from 1992 to 1999, due to the direct involvement of the Libyan regime in various attacks)
. rebels of an unknown quantity, bringing together defectors from the current regime, Islamic militants, private citizens (16) and agents of various Western services (American, British and French for the most part) and probably of Arab countries
. and, to complete this quick picture, a population with the highest living standards in Africa according to theUnited Nations 2010 Human Development Index and major grassroots development projects in Libya such as the « Great Man-Made River (17) » (18).
On the side of the three countries which have led the attack on Libya, we find:
. The United States: an empire struggling desperately to try and avoid the collapse of the "petro-dollar wall" triggered by the Arab revolution, but which is mired in intractable economic, financial and budgetary problems and which cannot openly be seen to attack a third Muslim country (after Afghanistan and Iraq). Its foreign policy in the region is driven by four traditional approaches: maintaining the "petro-dollar wall" through the establishment of "friendly" regimes, strengthening the Western camp by generating conflicts between the West and the rest of the world, selling arms (19) and creating areas of instability around the EU to reduce the European inclination for strategic independence. The country's crisis and the politico-diplomatic failures of the ventures in G. W. Bush’s era have greatly reduced the influence of the "neoconservative" (or Americanist) idea which advocates for the United States a leading role in Western military interventions.
. The United Kingdom: the former’s faithful supporter is itself also facing an historic financial, budgetary and economic crisis which has recently led to massive public spending cuts - including the military budget (20) - and is struggling nevertheless to try not to lose its international status. Its traditional objectives are pretty much identical to those of the United States, adding to which the interest, never denied, in any weakening of continental European cohesion. It has been the designer of the politics of division and repeated interventions in the Arab world since the late nineteenth century, which the Americans subsequently took on board.
. The United States: an empire struggling desperately to try and avoid the collapse of the "petro-dollar wall" triggered by the Arab revolution, but which is mired in intractable economic, financial and budgetary problems and which cannot openly be seen to attack a third Muslim country (after Afghanistan and Iraq). Its foreign policy in the region is driven by four traditional approaches: maintaining the "petro-dollar wall" through the establishment of "friendly" regimes, strengthening the Western camp by generating conflicts between the West and the rest of the world, selling arms (19) and creating areas of instability around the EU to reduce the European inclination for strategic independence. The country's crisis and the politico-diplomatic failures of the ventures in G. W. Bush’s era have greatly reduced the influence of the "neoconservative" (or Americanist) idea which advocates for the United States a leading role in Western military interventions.
. The United Kingdom: the former’s faithful supporter is itself also facing an historic financial, budgetary and economic crisis which has recently led to massive public spending cuts - including the military budget (20) - and is struggling nevertheless to try not to lose its international status. Its traditional objectives are pretty much identical to those of the United States, adding to which the interest, never denied, in any weakening of continental European cohesion. It has been the designer of the politics of division and repeated interventions in the Arab world since the late nineteenth century, which the Americans subsequently took on board.
. France: recently converted to the virtues of Americanism, a political vision of the world legitimizing, in the name of democracy, any action that serves the interests of the Western elite, the country is also facing the consequences of the global crisis whilst again trying to express its historical characteristics at the heart of an Atlanticist straightjacket in which the current French president has hemmed in the country’s diplomacy and defense. In the logic of subservience to the powerful which is Nicolas Sarkozy’s hallmark, showing oneself to be the best disciple seems to be the path chosen to channel this former "Great Nation’s" need to be different. Traditionally interventionist in Africa (the Côte d'Ivoire currently offers another example), the country does not balk at using its armed forces (21) to serve its interests or those of its key economic players such as oil and defence companies, very influential with the current government. On the other hand, traditionally France also sought for decades to strengthen the cohesion of mainland Europe, particularly between France and Germany, whilst demanding the development of a European defence. The weakening of US influence in the Mediterranean is also a familiar French objective. These last two aspects have been abandoned by the current French president, as they have indeed been sacrificed on the altar of intervention in Libya. At the same time, he has engaged the country in various conflicts that are beginning to pose significant logistic and budgetary problems for France (22).
As always when it comes to geopolitics, beyond the United Nations, there are also leaders whose characters and political circumstances directly influence decisions in military conflicts. The three leaders, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy have one thing in common, all three being in major political difficulty and leading countries that wanted to do business with Qaddafi a few weeks ago, especially France and the United Kingdom.
Nicolas Sarkozy is beating record levels of unpopularity and pretends to believe he can be reelected in 2012 (23). However, even the most fervent supporters of intervention in Libya acknowledge that for the French president it is, in the main, a domestic policy operation intended to try and inflate his popularity (24). Otherwise, he is probably the last leader of a major European country shaped by the Americanists of the G. W. Bush era with, therefore, the characteristic of being easily manipulated by the intelligence services, subscribing to the neoconservative view of the world stating that the use of force shapes history for the better when it is at the doing of the West, and to be devoid of any understanding and the least empathy for the historical trends in progress (25). On this basis, he offers Washington and London a great disguise, allowing the French flag (the one in opposition to the invasion of Iraq) to dress up an attack on an Arab country. In exchange, he was left playing warlord for a few days (26). And if things go wrong, he will be the perfect culprit for Washington (27)!
Barack Obama, who has also announced his candidacy for 2012, is in a very "Sarkozian" situation. Even if his popularity doesn’t reach the depths of his French counterpart, he has a very clear difficulty in gaining a second term since he has lost the support of independent voters and the left of the Democratic Party which hasn’t forgiven him for the betrayal of many of his campaign pledges (of which the closure of Guantanamo is not the least symbolic). This situation explains, moreover, why he is reluctant to make the US appear to be at the forefront of the Libyan operation, whereas it is obviously the orchestrator as confirmed by the presence of CIA agents in the field before the outbreak of the revolt. Moreover he doesn’t have the ties to the oil and defense industries that the Bush family had (28). The lies over Iraq (29) must have also weighed on Obama's indecision to engage in a kind of Libyan "Bay of Pigs" and forge his choice to, above all, not appear on the front row, especially as France and Sarkozy serve the purpose perfectly.
Finally David Cameron, without any international experience (and therefore yielding to the analyses of multiple intelligence agencies and other pro-intervention lobbies), must face a drop in his popularity simultaneously with a risk of his coalition collapsing over the failure of his substantial bet to massively slash the UK budget whilst asserting that economic growth wouldn’t be affected. It is, of course, as our team had anticipated nearly a year ago, the direct opposite which is happening. And David Cameron is now at the mercy of a major political crisis. So why refuse a welcome diversion for his popularity ... whilst waiting for the royal wedding?
Thus, one can see that among the key players in the violent drama being played in Libya, not only Gaddafi is at the end of the road. In fact, it’s a scenario designed and played by "has-beens". And that stands out even more if one takes into account the other key players or spectators, namely:
. the Arab countries, which are a priori opposed to Western intervention in their respective territories, except in the case of collective danger. Now, in their eyes, there really is a collective danger: not Gaddafi, but the grassroots Arab revolutions. Anything that can weaken this grassroots movement is, therefore, welcome to Arab leaders, even if it means having to bend to inter-dictatorial solidarity. On this occasion, Arab leaders have had the pleasure of seeing the West engage in a conflict which now prevents them from providing any effective support whatsoever to the revolutionary movements which trouble the other countries of the Arab world, since Paris, London and Washington need the "Arab guarantee" at all costs, even purely formal, to avoid their Libyan intervention being a fiasco.
. the BRIC countries abstained in the UN Security Council vote. China and Russia could have blocked intervention by using their veto. They didn’t do so because they didn’t want to appear as supporters of the Gaddafi regime and especially because they were eager to let the West bog itself down in another conflict at the very moment when, with the crisis, power relationships are becoming increasingly direct worldwide. The financial, diplomatic and political costs of the Libyan operation, in fact, weaken the position of the three leading countries in the great game of global system reorganization.
. Israel, of which we wrote in a previous GEAB issue that the Israeli perspective on events in the Arab world was one of the most interesting because it’s from a ringside seat in every sense of the term. The decisive intervention of European and American neocons in this adventure, all in favor of an ideological vision of the West on a Washington-Tel Aviv axis, illustrates the fact that behind the official discretion of the Jewish state, there really is a strong Israeli influence behind Libyan intervention. Gaddafi is one of Israel’s bugbears, so the occasion was in fact very tempting, especially since it allowed the undermining of the process of grassroots Arab revolutions which is of great concern to the current Israeli leaders.
As always when it comes to geopolitics, beyond the United Nations, there are also leaders whose characters and political circumstances directly influence decisions in military conflicts. The three leaders, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy have one thing in common, all three being in major political difficulty and leading countries that wanted to do business with Qaddafi a few weeks ago, especially France and the United Kingdom.
Nicolas Sarkozy is beating record levels of unpopularity and pretends to believe he can be reelected in 2012 (23). However, even the most fervent supporters of intervention in Libya acknowledge that for the French president it is, in the main, a domestic policy operation intended to try and inflate his popularity (24). Otherwise, he is probably the last leader of a major European country shaped by the Americanists of the G. W. Bush era with, therefore, the characteristic of being easily manipulated by the intelligence services, subscribing to the neoconservative view of the world stating that the use of force shapes history for the better when it is at the doing of the West, and to be devoid of any understanding and the least empathy for the historical trends in progress (25). On this basis, he offers Washington and London a great disguise, allowing the French flag (the one in opposition to the invasion of Iraq) to dress up an attack on an Arab country. In exchange, he was left playing warlord for a few days (26). And if things go wrong, he will be the perfect culprit for Washington (27)!
Barack Obama, who has also announced his candidacy for 2012, is in a very "Sarkozian" situation. Even if his popularity doesn’t reach the depths of his French counterpart, he has a very clear difficulty in gaining a second term since he has lost the support of independent voters and the left of the Democratic Party which hasn’t forgiven him for the betrayal of many of his campaign pledges (of which the closure of Guantanamo is not the least symbolic). This situation explains, moreover, why he is reluctant to make the US appear to be at the forefront of the Libyan operation, whereas it is obviously the orchestrator as confirmed by the presence of CIA agents in the field before the outbreak of the revolt. Moreover he doesn’t have the ties to the oil and defense industries that the Bush family had (28). The lies over Iraq (29) must have also weighed on Obama's indecision to engage in a kind of Libyan "Bay of Pigs" and forge his choice to, above all, not appear on the front row, especially as France and Sarkozy serve the purpose perfectly.
Finally David Cameron, without any international experience (and therefore yielding to the analyses of multiple intelligence agencies and other pro-intervention lobbies), must face a drop in his popularity simultaneously with a risk of his coalition collapsing over the failure of his substantial bet to massively slash the UK budget whilst asserting that economic growth wouldn’t be affected. It is, of course, as our team had anticipated nearly a year ago, the direct opposite which is happening. And David Cameron is now at the mercy of a major political crisis. So why refuse a welcome diversion for his popularity ... whilst waiting for the royal wedding?
Thus, one can see that among the key players in the violent drama being played in Libya, not only Gaddafi is at the end of the road. In fact, it’s a scenario designed and played by "has-beens". And that stands out even more if one takes into account the other key players or spectators, namely:
. the Arab countries, which are a priori opposed to Western intervention in their respective territories, except in the case of collective danger. Now, in their eyes, there really is a collective danger: not Gaddafi, but the grassroots Arab revolutions. Anything that can weaken this grassroots movement is, therefore, welcome to Arab leaders, even if it means having to bend to inter-dictatorial solidarity. On this occasion, Arab leaders have had the pleasure of seeing the West engage in a conflict which now prevents them from providing any effective support whatsoever to the revolutionary movements which trouble the other countries of the Arab world, since Paris, London and Washington need the "Arab guarantee" at all costs, even purely formal, to avoid their Libyan intervention being a fiasco.
. the BRIC countries abstained in the UN Security Council vote. China and Russia could have blocked intervention by using their veto. They didn’t do so because they didn’t want to appear as supporters of the Gaddafi regime and especially because they were eager to let the West bog itself down in another conflict at the very moment when, with the crisis, power relationships are becoming increasingly direct worldwide. The financial, diplomatic and political costs of the Libyan operation, in fact, weaken the position of the three leading countries in the great game of global system reorganization.
. Israel, of which we wrote in a previous GEAB issue that the Israeli perspective on events in the Arab world was one of the most interesting because it’s from a ringside seat in every sense of the term. The decisive intervention of European and American neocons in this adventure, all in favor of an ideological vision of the West on a Washington-Tel Aviv axis, illustrates the fact that behind the official discretion of the Jewish state, there really is a strong Israeli influence behind Libyan intervention. Gaddafi is one of Israel’s bugbears, so the occasion was in fact very tempting, especially since it allowed the undermining of the process of grassroots Arab revolutions which is of great concern to the current Israeli leaders.
The Libyan conflict: Catalyst for ten major breakdowns and trends in the process of global geopolitical dislocation
Involving the short-termism of an empire which is collapsing (USA), its assistant trying to survive (UK) and a power full of strategic mistakes (France), within a region undergoing full historic upheaval with major geopolitical consequences and involving emerging powers playing for the long term, this Franco-American-British intervention in Libya is, therefore, for LEAP/E2020, a powerful accelerator process of global geopolitical dislocation. Following this analysis of the conflict, its context and its players, our team has compiled a list of ten emerging breakdowns and trends that Libyan conflict is setting in motion:
. Inability of the United States to fully assume their military leadership
This is the first time since 1945 and is a lasting trend because it is rooted in the country's structural problems (central government paralysis, structural economic, financial and budgetary problems, rejection of the United States by Arab public opinion, ... Atlas is exhausted). Besides it is also a diplomatic exhaustion: never since 1945, has a military coalition assembled by Washington, reunited so few countries, coming from so few regions of the world. In fact, there are no Asians, no Latin Americans, no Africans. The Arabs make up the numbers: nobody knows who is actually participating apart from Qatar. One finds a West reduced to the strict minimum, and still even a part of NATO, and not the least such as Poland and Germany, has refused to intervene.
. Swansong of the neocons and Bush’s European clones
The absence of asserted US leadership also results from an exhaustion of the intellectual vein that provided the theoretical framework for foreign US action for the last twenty years: the neocons are an endangered species in the United States. The new trends are either the fight against Washington to the States’ benefit, or isolationism and the end of the oversized military. France, with a crew of "Americanist neocons" and "nationalist neocons" (30) is once again lagging behind history: it has kept the last communist party in Western Europe, it has elected an Americanist president at the time when the US was collapsing and it has intellectuals who claim to be representatives of neoconservatism when no one is interested on the other side of the Atlantic. For some as for others, this intervention and the deadlines of 2012 will mark the end of the journey. The time (that of elections, that of the financial crisis, that of the new world power relationships, that of their average age, ...) now plays against them, unlike the era of the Iraq invasion.
. Emergence of a new pivot of autonomous European action
The absurdity of this Libyan adventure is that with the leading British pair taking on a larger share of the operation’s leadership than that traditionally attributed to US partners in its military adventures, the world is discovering that the Europeans can be aggressive. Once the fog of war has lifted and the 2012 political changes have been made, LEAP/E2020 believes that future European leaders will use this adventure to accelerate the emergence of a real European centre of defense. And beyond defence, it’s the positions embodied by Germany (31), wanting to use diplomacy, which will prevail. Frankly, who can think that in this region in the middle of a revolution that so badly needs economic (32) and financial aid ..., the Europeans had no better summit to organize than a war summit to bomb one of the countries involved. An EU summit to put in place an extensive political and economic support plan for the region would have been another historic dimension than the military posturing of leaders at the end of the race. LEAP/E2020 believes we will have to wait 2 or 3 years for this other summit.
. Breakdown in the Atlantic Alliance’s cohesion
NATO has shown its cohesion crumble little more each year. Never has the Alliance known such a division. It reflects the total lack of NATO's ability to reflect European interests without being able to impose those of the United States any more. On this occasion, the German and Polish positions are clearly registered in a logic of collective European interest (fully following, moreover, the 2002 German position against the Iraq invasion): it is not by bringing war to a country or region that the lot of the population can be improved. Moreover, intervention in Libya has already created a whole raft of problems in neighboring countries, causing massive immigration that contributes to weaken Tunisia, Egypt, ... By following the Washington-London axis and adopting the Americanist attitude automatically justifying any Western military intervention conducted in the name of democracy, it’s Nicolas Sarkozy who has betrayed the traditional policy of France, leading France to betray the European common interest. According to our team, in a little over a year, in closing the Sarkozy interlude, France will have returned to its traditional foreign policy and the common European approach can be resumed. Moreover, the Libyan adventure will have reinforced the sense of urgency for such a European development. Just read the article in the New York Times of 04/13/2011 on the two meetings in Germany and Qatar, over the Libyan impasse, to understand the extent to which the Atlantic Alliance and its military arm, NATO, are now permanently weakened and divided. Everyone criticizes everybody, and in public! A sure sign of a major crisis.
. Birth of the Euro- BRIC diplomatic connection
The fact that Germany abstained from voting at the Security Council like Brazil, Russia, India and China is no anecdote. History’s anecdote in Europe today is Nicolas Sarkozy. In fact, Germany’s choice of Angela Merkel and the CDU/FDP pair (33), however traditionally very Atlanticist, reflects, first, that the most powerful country in the EU continues to embody the strictly European line, now independent of Washington, initiated by Gerhard Schröder’s SPD; and, secondly, that Germany’s strategic interests (like the whole of Euroland (34)) are now pushing towards a growing convergence of analysis with the BRIC countries, and less and less with Washington (35). This vote is, for our team, one of the first overt signs of future Euro-BRIC discussions which will take place between Euroland and these four countries. And it is very symbolic for the future to see Germany and China, together, call for a halt to military action in Libya (36).
. Highlighting the drastic financial constraints on any future Western military action
If, in Nicolas Sarkozy’s France nobody dares talk about the budgetary cost of the Libyan operation, it’s not the case in the United Kingdom and the United States. In London, evidence is emerging that Britain cannot sustain a conflict lasting more than a few weeks (37) at the very moment when the government is trying to significantly reduce the defense budget. Whilst in Washington, beyond a cost of one billion USD, about to be reached (38), it would be necessary to ask Congress for supplements to the budget in crisis ... in the middle of a crisis over reducing expenses. France cannot ignore this same reality in terms of costs for long. Very simply, the rest of the world is in the process of discovering that behind the bluster of its leaders, the "West" is no longer able to finance other than a symbolic conflict. If Paris, London and Washington think that this detail has escaped Gaddafi’s attention, they are sadly mistaken.
. European stalemate over the creation of a "Mediterranean Somalia"
It is, moreover, one of the reasons pushing our team to consider that we might witness the emergence of a "new Somalia" (as Musa Kusa, Gaddafi’s ex-Foreign Minister who defected to London, called it (39)) in Libya: piracy, mafias of all kinds, terrorism, regional instability, ... these results are far from the promises of democratic change in Libya announced by the coalition. The start of European humanitarian operations we are now talking about will be part of this stalemate scenario because it will be a sock puppet to start ground operations, thus bypassing the UN mandate. Once the French and English soldiers (ex-colonial armies) are on North African soil, the situation in the region will become uncontrollable. Don’t forget that even US intelligence services confirm that a number of Islamic fundamentalists can be found at the core of the Libyan revolutionaries. Libyan intervention can give rise to a geopolitical nightmare combining the worst aspects of the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan: Somalia therefore! In Benghazi, where shortages of all kinds are beginning to be felt, it’s a ripening situation for chronic instability (40).
. Attempt to derail the process of spontaneous grassroots Arab revolutions and neutralization of the West in its potential support for these revolutions
As analyzed above, this intervention is a godsend for those who wish to weaken the revolutionary movements in the Arab world and maintain the status quo for as long as possible, or even push the Europeans into a rationale of conflict with the Arab world, as is the case for the United States and Israel. It appears to be a paradox but the facts prove that the West is now unable to put the pressure on the pro-Western Arab regimes over their violent treatment of grassroots movements. “Who profits from the crime?” is also a question that is legitimate in terms of political anticipation.
. Lasting recovery in uncontrolled migration flows from Africa towards Europe
An unintended side effect of Libya’s destabilization or a desired element in the process of a West/Islam or Europe/Arab world confrontation and a means of overrating immigration’s popularity in the media? Here again one finds the same advisors at work, the same ideologues. Nonetheless, beyond each other’s intentions, this new wave of immigration will quickly require the EU to review its policy from top to bottom vis-à-vis the Arab world and North Africa in particular. According to LEAP/E2020, this development also plays out here in favour of the emergence of a new major European project towards the countries on its Southern border from 2012/2013.
. Inability of the United States to fully assume their military leadership
This is the first time since 1945 and is a lasting trend because it is rooted in the country's structural problems (central government paralysis, structural economic, financial and budgetary problems, rejection of the United States by Arab public opinion, ... Atlas is exhausted). Besides it is also a diplomatic exhaustion: never since 1945, has a military coalition assembled by Washington, reunited so few countries, coming from so few regions of the world. In fact, there are no Asians, no Latin Americans, no Africans. The Arabs make up the numbers: nobody knows who is actually participating apart from Qatar. One finds a West reduced to the strict minimum, and still even a part of NATO, and not the least such as Poland and Germany, has refused to intervene.
. Swansong of the neocons and Bush’s European clones
The absence of asserted US leadership also results from an exhaustion of the intellectual vein that provided the theoretical framework for foreign US action for the last twenty years: the neocons are an endangered species in the United States. The new trends are either the fight against Washington to the States’ benefit, or isolationism and the end of the oversized military. France, with a crew of "Americanist neocons" and "nationalist neocons" (30) is once again lagging behind history: it has kept the last communist party in Western Europe, it has elected an Americanist president at the time when the US was collapsing and it has intellectuals who claim to be representatives of neoconservatism when no one is interested on the other side of the Atlantic. For some as for others, this intervention and the deadlines of 2012 will mark the end of the journey. The time (that of elections, that of the financial crisis, that of the new world power relationships, that of their average age, ...) now plays against them, unlike the era of the Iraq invasion.
. Emergence of a new pivot of autonomous European action
The absurdity of this Libyan adventure is that with the leading British pair taking on a larger share of the operation’s leadership than that traditionally attributed to US partners in its military adventures, the world is discovering that the Europeans can be aggressive. Once the fog of war has lifted and the 2012 political changes have been made, LEAP/E2020 believes that future European leaders will use this adventure to accelerate the emergence of a real European centre of defense. And beyond defence, it’s the positions embodied by Germany (31), wanting to use diplomacy, which will prevail. Frankly, who can think that in this region in the middle of a revolution that so badly needs economic (32) and financial aid ..., the Europeans had no better summit to organize than a war summit to bomb one of the countries involved. An EU summit to put in place an extensive political and economic support plan for the region would have been another historic dimension than the military posturing of leaders at the end of the race. LEAP/E2020 believes we will have to wait 2 or 3 years for this other summit.
. Breakdown in the Atlantic Alliance’s cohesion
NATO has shown its cohesion crumble little more each year. Never has the Alliance known such a division. It reflects the total lack of NATO's ability to reflect European interests without being able to impose those of the United States any more. On this occasion, the German and Polish positions are clearly registered in a logic of collective European interest (fully following, moreover, the 2002 German position against the Iraq invasion): it is not by bringing war to a country or region that the lot of the population can be improved. Moreover, intervention in Libya has already created a whole raft of problems in neighboring countries, causing massive immigration that contributes to weaken Tunisia, Egypt, ... By following the Washington-London axis and adopting the Americanist attitude automatically justifying any Western military intervention conducted in the name of democracy, it’s Nicolas Sarkozy who has betrayed the traditional policy of France, leading France to betray the European common interest. According to our team, in a little over a year, in closing the Sarkozy interlude, France will have returned to its traditional foreign policy and the common European approach can be resumed. Moreover, the Libyan adventure will have reinforced the sense of urgency for such a European development. Just read the article in the New York Times of 04/13/2011 on the two meetings in Germany and Qatar, over the Libyan impasse, to understand the extent to which the Atlantic Alliance and its military arm, NATO, are now permanently weakened and divided. Everyone criticizes everybody, and in public! A sure sign of a major crisis.
. Birth of the Euro- BRIC diplomatic connection
The fact that Germany abstained from voting at the Security Council like Brazil, Russia, India and China is no anecdote. History’s anecdote in Europe today is Nicolas Sarkozy. In fact, Germany’s choice of Angela Merkel and the CDU/FDP pair (33), however traditionally very Atlanticist, reflects, first, that the most powerful country in the EU continues to embody the strictly European line, now independent of Washington, initiated by Gerhard Schröder’s SPD; and, secondly, that Germany’s strategic interests (like the whole of Euroland (34)) are now pushing towards a growing convergence of analysis with the BRIC countries, and less and less with Washington (35). This vote is, for our team, one of the first overt signs of future Euro-BRIC discussions which will take place between Euroland and these four countries. And it is very symbolic for the future to see Germany and China, together, call for a halt to military action in Libya (36).
. Highlighting the drastic financial constraints on any future Western military action
If, in Nicolas Sarkozy’s France nobody dares talk about the budgetary cost of the Libyan operation, it’s not the case in the United Kingdom and the United States. In London, evidence is emerging that Britain cannot sustain a conflict lasting more than a few weeks (37) at the very moment when the government is trying to significantly reduce the defense budget. Whilst in Washington, beyond a cost of one billion USD, about to be reached (38), it would be necessary to ask Congress for supplements to the budget in crisis ... in the middle of a crisis over reducing expenses. France cannot ignore this same reality in terms of costs for long. Very simply, the rest of the world is in the process of discovering that behind the bluster of its leaders, the "West" is no longer able to finance other than a symbolic conflict. If Paris, London and Washington think that this detail has escaped Gaddafi’s attention, they are sadly mistaken.
. European stalemate over the creation of a "Mediterranean Somalia"
It is, moreover, one of the reasons pushing our team to consider that we might witness the emergence of a "new Somalia" (as Musa Kusa, Gaddafi’s ex-Foreign Minister who defected to London, called it (39)) in Libya: piracy, mafias of all kinds, terrorism, regional instability, ... these results are far from the promises of democratic change in Libya announced by the coalition. The start of European humanitarian operations we are now talking about will be part of this stalemate scenario because it will be a sock puppet to start ground operations, thus bypassing the UN mandate. Once the French and English soldiers (ex-colonial armies) are on North African soil, the situation in the region will become uncontrollable. Don’t forget that even US intelligence services confirm that a number of Islamic fundamentalists can be found at the core of the Libyan revolutionaries. Libyan intervention can give rise to a geopolitical nightmare combining the worst aspects of the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan: Somalia therefore! In Benghazi, where shortages of all kinds are beginning to be felt, it’s a ripening situation for chronic instability (40).
. Attempt to derail the process of spontaneous grassroots Arab revolutions and neutralization of the West in its potential support for these revolutions
As analyzed above, this intervention is a godsend for those who wish to weaken the revolutionary movements in the Arab world and maintain the status quo for as long as possible, or even push the Europeans into a rationale of conflict with the Arab world, as is the case for the United States and Israel. It appears to be a paradox but the facts prove that the West is now unable to put the pressure on the pro-Western Arab regimes over their violent treatment of grassroots movements. “Who profits from the crime?” is also a question that is legitimate in terms of political anticipation.
. Lasting recovery in uncontrolled migration flows from Africa towards Europe
An unintended side effect of Libya’s destabilization or a desired element in the process of a West/Islam or Europe/Arab world confrontation and a means of overrating immigration’s popularity in the media? Here again one finds the same advisors at work, the same ideologues. Nonetheless, beyond each other’s intentions, this new wave of immigration will quickly require the EU to review its policy from top to bottom vis-à-vis the Arab world and North Africa in particular. According to LEAP/E2020, this development also plays out here in favour of the emergence of a new major European project towards the countries on its Southern border from 2012/2013.
. Fatigue of Western public opinion
With a 50% approval rating in the US and 40% in the United Kingdom, we are seeing that public opinion in the "go to war" countries is beginning to tire. In France, the degree of media and poll manipulation is such that it is absolutely impossible to give the least credence to the so-called 63% of French people supporting intervention in Libya. On the one hand, on the other side of the Atlantic and across the Channel, one has already seen a substantial weakening as the conflict has gone on. In France there is no reason not to see such a development, even if the media propaganda on the subject is very much stronger (41). As any poll didn’t point out such a trend at the time of our anticipations on the 2012 French electoral shock (the National Front ahead of the UMP and Nicolas Sarkozy’s elimination in the first round of presidential elections), LEAP/E2020 now believes that less than one in three French support Libyan intervention (42). Moreover, Nicolas Sarkozy’s popularity rating continues to slump, which is really incompatible with the strong attachment to his Libyan policy asserted by the pollsters. From Iraq and its lies to Afghanistan and its illusions, through the economic crisis and disillusionment, Western public opinion no longer believes in its leaders. Here also, this is a lasting trend.
With a 50% approval rating in the US and 40% in the United Kingdom, we are seeing that public opinion in the "go to war" countries is beginning to tire. In France, the degree of media and poll manipulation is such that it is absolutely impossible to give the least credence to the so-called 63% of French people supporting intervention in Libya. On the one hand, on the other side of the Atlantic and across the Channel, one has already seen a substantial weakening as the conflict has gone on. In France there is no reason not to see such a development, even if the media propaganda on the subject is very much stronger (41). As any poll didn’t point out such a trend at the time of our anticipations on the 2012 French electoral shock (the National Front ahead of the UMP and Nicolas Sarkozy’s elimination in the first round of presidential elections), LEAP/E2020 now believes that less than one in three French support Libyan intervention (42). Moreover, Nicolas Sarkozy’s popularity rating continues to slump, which is really incompatible with the strong attachment to his Libyan policy asserted by the pollsters. From Iraq and its lies to Afghanistan and its illusions, through the economic crisis and disillusionment, Western public opinion no longer believes in its leaders. Here also, this is a lasting trend.
-----------
Notes:
(1) See GEAB N°32
(2) Which Western leaders, who until last January were trying to sell him arms, nuclear reactors and other equipment of all kinds, well know, Nicolas Sarkozy most of all, since they have been widely and justly criticized in recent years for rolling out the red carpet for a nefarious political character. But, obviously, the politico-moral standards which prevailed until January 2011 suddenly became null and void in February 2011.
(3) Thus parallels can be found with Milosevic's Serbia and operations in Kosovo. This time Eastern Libya, around Benghazi, is a sort of Kosovo with oil. Moreover, we find Hillary Clinton, the current US Secretary of State and wife of former President Bill Clinton who initiated NATO military operations in Kosovo, on the side of the supporters for military intervention in Libya. Another common point, the confused emergence of the Benghazi rebel government has many similarities with the sudden appearance in 1999 of the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) in the media at the very moment intervention had to be justified. Source: Asia Times, 03/31/2011
(4) On this, see the speeches of the Foreign Affairs Minister, Alain Juppé, at the UN Security Council, of theFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy, of the British Prime Minister David Cameron and the American President Barack Obama, as well as all the unanimous editorials in the French , UK and US media in the early days of the conflict. As the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, whose country refused to join the military intervention, highlighted: "Why Libya all of a sudden? Gaddafi has already abused his people in the past and there are many other countries where more serious problems arise for the people".
(5) Except a few, always identical scenes of a few militiamen in paramilitary uniforms firing at random and sporting the V for victory in front of benevolent Western cameras.
(6) To "avoid a bloodbath in Benghazi", the hypothetical justification of the urgency of military action in Libya, two alternative processes could have been implemented: avoid pushing the “rebels” to act without having the means, and threaten Gaddafi with new embargos and direct reprisals against him and his family. That would have been largely sufficient to calm his enthusiasm. But evidently, another scenario was clearly desired.
(7) That doesn’t mean that there were no massacres. But it would be really naive, after the invasion of Iraq and "Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction", to take Western leaders’ statements on the subject at face value.
(8) Here again one finds a bizarre parallel with Iraq and we can only speculate on the grassroots (and revolutionary) legitimacy of such people.
(9) Where, for example, France 24, funded by the French government, has shown itself, since the Libyan conflict began, to be like a Fox News clone during the invasion of Iraq, that’s to say, a media at war with only one goal: to legitimize the French government’s actions. Generally, to also follow Libyan events in the Russian, Chinese, German, Indian or Brazilian media is an effective way to form one’s own opinion. Sources : RT, 03/08/2011
(10) Foreign Policy of 03/25/2011 and Le Temps of 03/30/2011 describe, each in their own way, the absence of any rebel government whatsoever, yet already recognized at the time by Nicolas Sarkozy’s French state.
(11) According to our team, various American, British and French agencies operating in Libya have simply encouraged various Libyan groups having little or no organization to trigger the rebellion by promising support and a quick and easy victory. It is a classic method which has been often used in the Arab world in particular, for decades. In the face of the Libyan regime’s stronger than expected resistance, this "simple plan" collapsed and urgently required escalation by intervention. Inevitable question: which of the Western intelligence services or the Libyan rebels appeared first in Benghazi? Source: Msnbc, 03/30/2011
(12) Besides, the African Union also now clearly declares itself to be on Gaddafi’s side, putting forward peace plans that suit him perfectly. Source: Libération, 04/11/2011
(13) Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, even denounces EU hypocrisy over Libya. Source: Le Monde, 04/08/2011
(14) Thomas Friedman, in the New York Times of 03/29/2011 is, moreover, reduced to hope that luck will be with the coalition to get out of this mess.
(15) But to whom military intervention has restored luster and a stature of "resisting Western imperialism". He seemed like an old dictator at the end of the road and there he is again "put back in the saddle" by the Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy trio. Sources: SlateAfrique, 04/06/2011; Asia Times, 03/31/2011
(16) Source: Intérêt-Général-Info, 04/11/2011
(17) A huge project which involves supplying water from underground Saharan aquifers to coastal cities (and the Sahara desert) Source: Wikipedia.
(18) This aspect is perhaps not unrelated to the evident lack of widespread uprising against the Libyan regime: Qaddafi is not the same class of dictator as Ben Ali or Mubarak. Source: Télérama, 03/30/2011
(19) And on this point, the Libyan conflict seems to be a multinational show single-handedly replacing the Paris and Farnborough Air Shows. In fact, each of the countries involved makes it a point to demonstrate its combat aircraft. The latest country, Sweden, has sent eight Gripen which Swedish Wire of 03/29/2011 has even stated is competing in several markets with the French Rafale and Boeing's F16 (which are also on permanent display in the Libyan skies).
(20) Ironically, the French media talk about the problem of the cost of military intervention for the United Kingdom, but are careful not bring it up for France. Source: Le Parisien, 03/22/2011
(21) Thus France is simultaneously involved in five wars without Parliament having decided on any and without the Socialist opposition having the courage to make them topics of a political battle under the pretext of national unity in the event of conflict.
(22) Source: 20Minutes, 04/11/2011
(23) Whilst all the current trends in France confirm LEAP/E2020’s November 2011 anticipation, namely that he won’t even appear in the second round of the 2012 French presidential elections. He will thus be worse than his mentor, G. W. Bush. His political future is now behind him, but clearsightedness is not the current French leader’s strong point: he doesn’t know it and is therefore tempted by any "big gesture" from which he hopes he will be able to get back in the saddle for the elections.
(24) Particularly in trying to forget his support until the last minute for the Ben Ali and Mubarak regimes and his fawning welcome for Gaddafi in 2007.
(25) The balance sheet of his term in office after 4 years speaks volumes. The latest success to date is the implosion of his party, the UMP. On this score, the same advisers who suggested his electoral strategy are maneuvering in the case of Libya!
(26) Sources: Libération, 03/30/2011; New York Times, 03/20/2011
(27) Moreover, minds are beginning to be prepared for such a development through articles bringing up the risks taken by Sarkozy. Source: New York Times, 04/09/2011
(28) He is rather a creature of the financial world.
(29) Hoax intelligence agencies, false revolutionary leaders, ...
(30) To go back to the categories in Franck Biancheri’s book “The World Crisis: The Path to the World Afterwards”, a Bernard Henry Lévy belongs to the first category and an Emmanuel Todd to the second. Both are two sides of the same coin; sixty-eighters at the end of the road.
(31) And who keeps to them firmly more than a month after the intervention’s beginning, contrary to the hopes of Paris, London and Washington. Source: Deutsche Welle, 04/13/2011
(32) For example, at a time when the economies of North Africa are suffering from a sharp drop in tourism revenues (see chart below) essential to their survival, the French-American-British add a military conflict to the region, further exacerbating tourists’ flight and the economic problems of the region.
(33) In this regard, it’s worthwhile remembering that the FDP’s protecting power, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Germany’s indestructible Foreign Minister from 1974 to 1992, always considered the Atlantic alliance as a situation imposed by the consequences the Second World War and not a natural aspiration of German foreign policy. Similarly, his pro-European commitment was always designed following a logic that German interests were at heart of European priorities. Today, at the time of a geopolitical crisis, facing a France without any European project and a United States in full disarray, it is not surprising that these trends appear more clearly.
(34) Poland in this respect is a textbook example. As the Americanist Kaczinczy twins interlude is closing, Warsaw naturally finds itself in the European strategic rationale, like most new member states.
(35) Only the German Greens, many of whose leaders have maintained more than confused relationships with the United States since their turbulent youth in the 60s and 70s, led by Joschka Fischer, are very docile vis-à-vis the geopolitical demands of Washington. At the SPD, apart from one generation of hardcore Atlanticists which is coming to an end, played by Karsten Voigt from whom we have heard much criticizing the German vote in the Security Council, and who was from 1999 to 2010 "Mr. Transatlantic" of the German Foreign Affairs Ministry, there isn’t a clear belief on relations with the United States any more. Finally, for Germany, alone and without the need of the French guarantee like Iraq, Libyan intervention and the vote at the Security Council represents a new stage in its lasting strategic distancing from US interests.
(36) Source: Xinhua, 04/01/2011
(37) There is even a shortage of missiles after just several days of attacks. This Libyan operation will have illustrated the very "virtual" nature of British and French firepower. Sources: Telegraph, 03/23/2011; Telegraph, 03/28/2011
(38) Source: FoxNews, 03/24/2011
(39) Here, remember that the defections of Libyan officials hailed by US, British and French leaders and media may have two interpretations: either the Gaddafi regime is indeed crumbling and the officials are leaving the ship or, on the contrary, the Gaddafi regime is holding up and those who were more or less involved in the operation to overthrow the regime prefer to flee rather than end up in prison or executed. The coming weeks will decide. Source: Telegraph, 04/11/2011
(40) Source: Telegraph, 04/10/2011
(41) We invite our French and English-reading readers to watch France 24, France 2 and TF1 alongside CNN, Skynews and the BBC. They can see for themselves the extent to which political control is exerted over the French media on Libya.
(42) By the end of April our team believes that all the polls in the three countries should confirm this development.
Notes:
(1) See GEAB N°32
(2) Which Western leaders, who until last January were trying to sell him arms, nuclear reactors and other equipment of all kinds, well know, Nicolas Sarkozy most of all, since they have been widely and justly criticized in recent years for rolling out the red carpet for a nefarious political character. But, obviously, the politico-moral standards which prevailed until January 2011 suddenly became null and void in February 2011.
(3) Thus parallels can be found with Milosevic's Serbia and operations in Kosovo. This time Eastern Libya, around Benghazi, is a sort of Kosovo with oil. Moreover, we find Hillary Clinton, the current US Secretary of State and wife of former President Bill Clinton who initiated NATO military operations in Kosovo, on the side of the supporters for military intervention in Libya. Another common point, the confused emergence of the Benghazi rebel government has many similarities with the sudden appearance in 1999 of the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) in the media at the very moment intervention had to be justified. Source: Asia Times, 03/31/2011
(4) On this, see the speeches of the Foreign Affairs Minister, Alain Juppé, at the UN Security Council, of theFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy, of the British Prime Minister David Cameron and the American President Barack Obama, as well as all the unanimous editorials in the French , UK and US media in the early days of the conflict. As the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, whose country refused to join the military intervention, highlighted: "Why Libya all of a sudden? Gaddafi has already abused his people in the past and there are many other countries where more serious problems arise for the people".
(5) Except a few, always identical scenes of a few militiamen in paramilitary uniforms firing at random and sporting the V for victory in front of benevolent Western cameras.
(6) To "avoid a bloodbath in Benghazi", the hypothetical justification of the urgency of military action in Libya, two alternative processes could have been implemented: avoid pushing the “rebels” to act without having the means, and threaten Gaddafi with new embargos and direct reprisals against him and his family. That would have been largely sufficient to calm his enthusiasm. But evidently, another scenario was clearly desired.
(7) That doesn’t mean that there were no massacres. But it would be really naive, after the invasion of Iraq and "Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction", to take Western leaders’ statements on the subject at face value.
(8) Here again one finds a bizarre parallel with Iraq and we can only speculate on the grassroots (and revolutionary) legitimacy of such people.
(9) Where, for example, France 24, funded by the French government, has shown itself, since the Libyan conflict began, to be like a Fox News clone during the invasion of Iraq, that’s to say, a media at war with only one goal: to legitimize the French government’s actions. Generally, to also follow Libyan events in the Russian, Chinese, German, Indian or Brazilian media is an effective way to form one’s own opinion. Sources : RT, 03/08/2011
(10) Foreign Policy of 03/25/2011 and Le Temps of 03/30/2011 describe, each in their own way, the absence of any rebel government whatsoever, yet already recognized at the time by Nicolas Sarkozy’s French state.
(11) According to our team, various American, British and French agencies operating in Libya have simply encouraged various Libyan groups having little or no organization to trigger the rebellion by promising support and a quick and easy victory. It is a classic method which has been often used in the Arab world in particular, for decades. In the face of the Libyan regime’s stronger than expected resistance, this "simple plan" collapsed and urgently required escalation by intervention. Inevitable question: which of the Western intelligence services or the Libyan rebels appeared first in Benghazi? Source: Msnbc, 03/30/2011
(12) Besides, the African Union also now clearly declares itself to be on Gaddafi’s side, putting forward peace plans that suit him perfectly. Source: Libération, 04/11/2011
(13) Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, even denounces EU hypocrisy over Libya. Source: Le Monde, 04/08/2011
(14) Thomas Friedman, in the New York Times of 03/29/2011 is, moreover, reduced to hope that luck will be with the coalition to get out of this mess.
(15) But to whom military intervention has restored luster and a stature of "resisting Western imperialism". He seemed like an old dictator at the end of the road and there he is again "put back in the saddle" by the Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy trio. Sources: SlateAfrique, 04/06/2011; Asia Times, 03/31/2011
(16) Source: Intérêt-Général-Info, 04/11/2011
(17) A huge project which involves supplying water from underground Saharan aquifers to coastal cities (and the Sahara desert) Source: Wikipedia.
(18) This aspect is perhaps not unrelated to the evident lack of widespread uprising against the Libyan regime: Qaddafi is not the same class of dictator as Ben Ali or Mubarak. Source: Télérama, 03/30/2011
(19) And on this point, the Libyan conflict seems to be a multinational show single-handedly replacing the Paris and Farnborough Air Shows. In fact, each of the countries involved makes it a point to demonstrate its combat aircraft. The latest country, Sweden, has sent eight Gripen which Swedish Wire of 03/29/2011 has even stated is competing in several markets with the French Rafale and Boeing's F16 (which are also on permanent display in the Libyan skies).
(20) Ironically, the French media talk about the problem of the cost of military intervention for the United Kingdom, but are careful not bring it up for France. Source: Le Parisien, 03/22/2011
(21) Thus France is simultaneously involved in five wars without Parliament having decided on any and without the Socialist opposition having the courage to make them topics of a political battle under the pretext of national unity in the event of conflict.
(22) Source: 20Minutes, 04/11/2011
(23) Whilst all the current trends in France confirm LEAP/E2020’s November 2011 anticipation, namely that he won’t even appear in the second round of the 2012 French presidential elections. He will thus be worse than his mentor, G. W. Bush. His political future is now behind him, but clearsightedness is not the current French leader’s strong point: he doesn’t know it and is therefore tempted by any "big gesture" from which he hopes he will be able to get back in the saddle for the elections.
(24) Particularly in trying to forget his support until the last minute for the Ben Ali and Mubarak regimes and his fawning welcome for Gaddafi in 2007.
(25) The balance sheet of his term in office after 4 years speaks volumes. The latest success to date is the implosion of his party, the UMP. On this score, the same advisers who suggested his electoral strategy are maneuvering in the case of Libya!
(26) Sources: Libération, 03/30/2011; New York Times, 03/20/2011
(27) Moreover, minds are beginning to be prepared for such a development through articles bringing up the risks taken by Sarkozy. Source: New York Times, 04/09/2011
(28) He is rather a creature of the financial world.
(29) Hoax intelligence agencies, false revolutionary leaders, ...
(30) To go back to the categories in Franck Biancheri’s book “The World Crisis: The Path to the World Afterwards”, a Bernard Henry Lévy belongs to the first category and an Emmanuel Todd to the second. Both are two sides of the same coin; sixty-eighters at the end of the road.
(31) And who keeps to them firmly more than a month after the intervention’s beginning, contrary to the hopes of Paris, London and Washington. Source: Deutsche Welle, 04/13/2011
(32) For example, at a time when the economies of North Africa are suffering from a sharp drop in tourism revenues (see chart below) essential to their survival, the French-American-British add a military conflict to the region, further exacerbating tourists’ flight and the economic problems of the region.
(33) In this regard, it’s worthwhile remembering that the FDP’s protecting power, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Germany’s indestructible Foreign Minister from 1974 to 1992, always considered the Atlantic alliance as a situation imposed by the consequences the Second World War and not a natural aspiration of German foreign policy. Similarly, his pro-European commitment was always designed following a logic that German interests were at heart of European priorities. Today, at the time of a geopolitical crisis, facing a France without any European project and a United States in full disarray, it is not surprising that these trends appear more clearly.
(34) Poland in this respect is a textbook example. As the Americanist Kaczinczy twins interlude is closing, Warsaw naturally finds itself in the European strategic rationale, like most new member states.
(35) Only the German Greens, many of whose leaders have maintained more than confused relationships with the United States since their turbulent youth in the 60s and 70s, led by Joschka Fischer, are very docile vis-à-vis the geopolitical demands of Washington. At the SPD, apart from one generation of hardcore Atlanticists which is coming to an end, played by Karsten Voigt from whom we have heard much criticizing the German vote in the Security Council, and who was from 1999 to 2010 "Mr. Transatlantic" of the German Foreign Affairs Ministry, there isn’t a clear belief on relations with the United States any more. Finally, for Germany, alone and without the need of the French guarantee like Iraq, Libyan intervention and the vote at the Security Council represents a new stage in its lasting strategic distancing from US interests.
(36) Source: Xinhua, 04/01/2011
(37) There is even a shortage of missiles after just several days of attacks. This Libyan operation will have illustrated the very "virtual" nature of British and French firepower. Sources: Telegraph, 03/23/2011; Telegraph, 03/28/2011
(38) Source: FoxNews, 03/24/2011
(39) Here, remember that the defections of Libyan officials hailed by US, British and French leaders and media may have two interpretations: either the Gaddafi regime is indeed crumbling and the officials are leaving the ship or, on the contrary, the Gaddafi regime is holding up and those who were more or less involved in the operation to overthrow the regime prefer to flee rather than end up in prison or executed. The coming weeks will decide. Source: Telegraph, 04/11/2011
(40) Source: Telegraph, 04/10/2011
(41) We invite our French and English-reading readers to watch France 24, France 2 and TF1 alongside CNN, Skynews and the BBC. They can see for themselves the extent to which political control is exerted over the French media on Libya.
(42) By the end of April our team believes that all the polls in the three countries should confirm this development.
