April 15-17, 2011

CounterPunch Diary

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

..............Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy.......... now say that to leave Gaddafi in power would be an "unconscionable betrayal" ............

This is not Mission Creep but, once again, Mission Leap, way beyond the UN mandate.

.............

It seems that the rebels might actually be under the overall supervision of the international banking industry, rather than the oil majors.

On March 19 they announced the “[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.’”

CNBC senior editor John Carney asked, “Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.”

Ellen Brown, author of the terrific Web of Debt: the Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free, wrote recently [Libya War All About Oil or Gold and Banking?] about the rebels’ sophisticated financial operations in the following terms:

“According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Lybia – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar,” Gadaffi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gadaffi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.

“And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed: ‘One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned. . . . Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue [with the notion] that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this [taking down the Central Bank of Libya] is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into [the globalists'] hive of compliant nations.’”

I’d really like to see an objective account of Qaddafi’s allocation of oil revenues versus the US’s, in terms of social improvement. [Alexander Cockburn concludes as he goes on to other related subjects.]