Following NATO’s meeting today it appears that the organization is lukewarm about the idea of a military intervention in Libya, including a no-fly zone. The fact that the very same folks who illegally attacked Yugoslavia are now seriously speaking about the “need for legal sanction” is really rather disgusting, but it’s good news anyway.
So what’s next?
Well, a situation a la Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal is one possibility. Remember what happened then? The Najibullah regime managed to stay in power for another two years until the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and, mostly, the Pakistanis succeeded in re-taking Kabul (and promptly murdering him). The comparison should not be taken too far, of course as there are big differences between the two situations, but something similar could well be in the making if nobody intervenes.
Which brings me to my next point. Several media reports recently mentioned some huge gas storage facility (don’t recall the name or location) which, if it exploded, would provoke a massive blast followed by an equally massive release of toxic gas resulting in many thousands of dead people.
Well, are you catching my drift?
In these “post-9/11” times when false flags are so successful, all it takes, at least according to the reports I have heard, one missile or round and the whole thing goes into the air? How hard do you think it would be for the USraeli Empire to deliver such a missile right on target? (That would be a *perfect* mission for a B-2 bomber, by the way…)
Would that not be a wonderful ‘proof’ that foreign military intervention is the “only way to stop this horrible massacre” and all the rest of the rhetoric we heard in Bosnia?
Another possibility would be a chemical attack on anti-regime forces which, of course, would be automatically and immediately blamed on Gaddafi without so much as a modicum of investigation?
Considering the huge wealth at stake, I would say that those who want a foreign military intervention and who “cannot” “afford” a situation like the one following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan are very likely to try a false flag ‘atrocity’ to force NATO’s hand.
We should all now be hyper-critical of any report of atrocities coming out Libya.
The Saker
Peak Oil is the background to all this and is potentially a greater threat to industrial civilisation than global warming.
Right now smoke is rising from burning oil storage tanks at Ras Lanuf, one of Libya’s main oil ports and a battle zone in what Western media are still trying not to admit has long since crossed the line into civil war. The price of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark grade, is currently on the upside of US$115 a barrel, ticking nervously upwards whenever anybody in the industrial world remembers that this Friday has been announced on anonymous websites as a day for mass protest in Saudi Arabia. What was that old joke about living in interesting times?
This is the sort of thing that happens when a civilization runs up against the limits of its resource base. About 1.3 million barrels of oil per day that usually flow into the global economy from Libyan fields is shut in at the moment, due to the fighting; that sounds like a lot, and of course in objective terms it is, but it’s less than 2% of the world’s total daily oil production. Not that long ago, a 1.3 million barrel a day shortfall would have been a minor issue for the world’s economies, easily covered the moment one of the world’s other oil-producing nations decides to cash in by turning open the tap a bit further. This time, it’s driving a drastic price spike and sending gaggles of panicked US congresscritters to the nearest microphone in order to insist that the US ought to draw down its, ahem, Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The difference, of course, is that since 2004 global oil production has flatlined but demand has continued to grow, and at this point there’s very little slack left. You can draw your own conclusions about what’s likely to happen when global oil production begins to decline, as it will within the current decade. It’s not likely to be pretty
yes indeed: be very hypercritical..
as much that we are beind told is not true. HRW scuttles another furfy:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi020311.html
http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/human-rights-watch-no-mercenaries-in-libya/
Robert:
its said to be an old chinese curse(‘but who know?!) against a particuly nasty enemy:
May you live in Interesting times’
Brian
What makes you think a terrible massacre would “force” the West to intervene? They obviously don’t want to get terribly involved, and we know that they don’t give a damn about any blood that’s spilled in the Third World.
@Robert:Not that long ago, a 1.3 million barrel a day shortfall would have been a minor issue for the world’s economies, easily covered the moment one of the world’s other oil-producing nations decides to cash in by turning open the tap a bit further
Yes, absolutely, the system is cracking at its seams while the world corporate media is doing all it can to look away from that.
@ProletarianRenegade:What makes you think a terrible massacre would “force” the West to intervene?
Srebrenica, Racak, the Kuweiti incubators, etc. Once the Empire decides to intervene, its creates some kind of ‘atrocity’ which then ‘forces’ it to intervene on ‘humanitarian’ grounds.
Hitler already did that with his ‘humanitarian intervention’ on behalf of the Sudeten Germans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudeten_Germans
Once the Empire decides to intervene, its creates some kind of ‘atrocity’ which then ‘forces’ it to intervene on ‘humanitarian’ grounds.
No need for them to invent atrocities when Gaddafi’s forces are committing them every day. If/when he retakes the rebel towns, he will make the aftermath of the Paris Commune look like a picnic. You can bet on it.