http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/what-5-years-of-lexis-nexis-reveals-about-libya-and-the-west/
June 1, 2011 What 5 years of Lexis-Nexis reveals about Libya and the West<http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/what-5-years-of-lexis-nexis-reveals-about-libya-and-the-west/> Filed under: Libya <http://en.wordpress.com/tag/libya/> louisproyect @ 5:08 pm *Just around the time that the West began military operations against Libya, there were ex post facto attempts to describe the assault as the culmination of long-standing hostilities. The model for many, especially Diana Johnstone and Jean Bricmont, was Yugoslavia with Qaddafi serving as a Milosevic type figure. This approach struck me as incoherent in light of the evidence that Libya had been pursuing the same type of neoliberal economic policies as post-Milosevic Serbia for the better part of a decade.* There was also an attempt to equate the Benghazi-based rebellion as Libyas version of the KLA. This involved attempts to uncover conspiracies by the West to stir up trouble in the eastern regions of Libya and get the restless natives to rise up against a benevolent leader who had showered them with wealth for the longest time. The latest instance of this came to my attention in a post to the Marxism mailing list that linked to an article by Michel Collon that appearedunfortunatelyin *Granma Internacional*<http://www.michelcollon.info/Understanding-the-war-in-Libya.html?lang=fr>. Collon is a member of the Axis for Peace, a project initiated by the Voltaire Network based in France. Collon described a plot that was hatched by the West well before the February 2011 uprising: What was the role of secret services? In fact, the Libyan case didnt start in February in Benghazi, but in Paris October 21st, 2010. According to the revelations of Italian journalist Franco Bechis (Libero, 24th of March) it is that day that the French secret service had prepared the revolt of Benghazi. They then returned (or perhaps even before) Nuri Mesmari, Chief of Protocol of Gaddafi, who was almost his right hand against him. He was the only one who enters the residence of the Libyan leader without knocking. Coming to Paris with his family for a surgery, Mesmari didnt meet any doctor there, but on the other side, he would talk to several officials of the French secret services and Sarkozys close aides, according to the latest web Maghreb Confidential. On November 16th, at the Hotel Concorde Lafayette, he prepared a large delegation that would go two days later to Benghazi. Pretty good stuff, I must say. If I were to turn this into a movie, Id cast John Turturro as Nuri Mesmari and Tony Shalhoub as Qaddafi. And maybe Steve Martin as a French secret agent. The Voltaire Network shares the mechanical anti-imperialism outlook of many in the pro-Qaddafi wing of the left, including MRZine, Counterpunch and Michel Chossudovskys Global Research. The Voltaire Network was founded by Thierry Meyssan who wrote 9/11: The Big Lie. Like Hugo Chavez, Meyssan would appear to have a conspiratorial mindset when it comes to 9/11 and the Libyan uprising. *It was the CIA whodunit.* Since Collon spent 8 years reporting from Yugoslavia, it is not surprising that he sees Libya through the prism of Yugoslavia even though the facts do not support it. When I first began writing about the war in Kosovo, I made it a point to go through five years worth of Lexis-Nexis articles. In a reply to Solidarity, I made a point of citing Chris Hedges who I can now see in retrospect as one of the NY Timess more honest reporters on Yugoslavia even though I had problems with his Central America coverage. On March 28, 1999 he reported: The KLA splits down a bizarre ideological divide, with hints of fascism on one side and whiffs of communism on the other. The former faction is led by the sons and grandsons of rightist Albanian fighters either the heirs of those who fought in the World War II fascist militias and the Skanderbeg volunteer SS division raised by the Nazis, or the descendants of the rightist Albanian rebels who rose up against the Serbs 80 years ago. Although never much of a fighting force, the Skanderbeg division took part in the shameful roundup and deportation of the provinces few hundred Jews during the Holocaust. The divisions remnants fought Titos Partisans at the end of the war, leaving thousands of ethnic Albanians dead. The decision by KLA commanders to dress their police in black fatigues and order their fighters to salute with a clenched fist to the forehead led many to worry about these fascist antecedents. Following such criticism, the salute has been changed to the traditional open-palm salute common in the U.S. Army. I also tried to prove that the hostility toward Milosevic had a class basis. I cited Carol J. Williams article in the December 12, 1990 Los Angeles Times: The choice of Milosevic and what amounts to hard-line communism isolates Serbia, the largest republic, from four other Yugoslav states that have elected center-right governments and set about repairing the economic damage inflicted by half a century of Marxism. The Socialists have remained popular in Serbia despite an anti-Communist mood in Eastern Europe I just spent about an hour doing the same kind of exercise for Libya. Nothing turned up about CIA or French intelligence plotting against Qaddafi, despite Mr. Collons best efforts. If anybody thinks that the articles below that are mostly about the economic interests shared by imperialism and Libya augur war, then theres a bridge in Manhattan that Id like to sell you cheap. 2006 Christian Science Monitor January 27, 2006, Friday Firms beat path to Libya By Simon Martelli Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor DATELINE: TRIPOLI, LIBYA A Libyan official said this week he expected oil firms to help normalize US ties. Its not unusual for the five-star Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel which towers above this citys waterfront to be completely booked, many of its 299 rooms filled with foreign oil tycoons eager to tap into the countrys untold reserves. After more than 20 years as a global pariah, Libya is coming out of isolation. Most international sanctions have been lifted since its enigmatic leader, Col. Muammar Qaddafi, abandoned his weapons program, renounced terrorism, and accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, compensating the victims families. With the end of the Lockerbie issue, relations returned to normal and there were many delegations of Congress who visited Libya. I think all efforts are heading towards ending animosity, Colonel Qaddafi said in an interview with the United States-funded Arabic TV channel Al-Hurra last week. Now, the companies that helped create Libyas oil industry in the 1970s are returning as Qaddafi rebuilds bridges to the West that he burned long ago, and this may help to precipitate political, as well as economic, change. In a major step, ExxonMobil, the worlds largest publicly traded oil company, signed an exploration and production deal with Libya last month. Marathon, Amerada Hess, and ConocoPhilips who together form the Oasis group also negotiated their return at the end of December since being forced out by sanctions in the mid-1980s, while Occidental returned in August last year. The Oasis group was producing 400,000 barrels of oil per day before it pulled out. * * * The New York Times May 16, 2006 Tuesday U.S. WILL RESTORE DIPLOMATIC LINKS WITH THE LIBYANS By JOEL BRINKLEY; Matthew L. Wald and Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting for this article. DATELINE: WASHINGTON, May 15 The Bush administration announced Monday that it would re-establish full diplomatic ties with Libya because Libya had abandoned its nuclear and other unconventional weapons programs and helped in the campaign against terrorism. The decision ends more than 25 years of hostility while sending a strong signal to Iran and North Korea to follow suit. Along with the normalization of relations and the announced intention to open a new embassy in Tripoli, the administration removed Libya from the list of nations that are state sponsors of terrorism. The United States had reaffirmed Libyas place on that list as recently as March. The announcements were a result of Libyas surprise decision in 2003 to renounce terrorism. At the time, senior American officials said they believed that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, had taken that step because he was chastened by the American invasion of Iraq. Since then, Libya has also destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles and dismantled a secret nuclear weapons program. Libya is an important model as nations around the world press for changes in behavior by the Iranian and North Korean regimes, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. Hers was just one of several similar statements on Monday from senior officials who worked hard to turn Libyas change in behavior into a lesson for Iran as a resolution on Irans nuclear development program remains stalled in the United Nations Security Council. So far, however, Iran has ridiculed Libya for its reconciliation with the West. But on Monday, Libya accepted the news enthusiastically and even promised to cooperate with the United States in at least one area in which it is ill equipped to offer help. We encourage America on the path of cooperation and we hope we will cooperate together through cultural debate to spread democracy around the world together, said Mustapha Zaidi, who leads Libyas Revolutionary Committees an apparatus of Colonel Qaddafis iron-fisted control of the country. 2007 The Washington Post November 6, 2007 Tuesday Oil Wealth Fuels Gaddafis Drive For Reinvention By Ellen Knickmeyer; Washington Post Foreign Service DATELINE: TRIPOLI, Libya Brother Leader Moammar Gaddafi still exhorts his people to greatness from billboards, banners and murals. But these days a different kind of command is driving Libyas transformation as the newly opened country taps into oil wealth: izala, Arabic for raze it to the ground. Surveyors are spraying the word in red paint up and down Libyas Mediterranean coast. The orange-vested road crews are tagging for demolition the old Libya low-rise, stucco Libya, sleepy under decades of Gaddafis socialist economy and international sanctions. To rise in its place, Gaddafis officials say: the increasingly capitalist Libya, with new buildings for the countrys new stock exchange. Airports to ferry in and out a dreamed-of annual flow of 30 million oil workers, tourists and other travelers. The worlds second-largest port after Singapore. Railways. Highways. Hospitals. Schools. Luxury beachfront hotels. Libyans and Westerners here cite a statement attributed to Gaddafi: Libya must destroy in order to rebuild. I cant believe theyre going to do it, one white-haired shopkeeper said this past weekend at his snack shop on the coast road east of the capital, Tripoli. Izala was scrawled across the front of his sandstone shop, marking it for bulldozing to clear the way for a highway. Its going on all over the country, the shopkeeper said, speaking out of earshot of the government officials who still often trail foreign reporters here. Theyre coming up with all these wild schemes, and no one knows if its going to happen. * * * The Independent (London) March 5, 2007 Monday THE COLONEL WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD; Thirty years ago, Muammar Gaddafis Green Book branded democracy a problem. Now, not even pan-Africanism can save Libyas leader from the forces of change. Peter Popham reports; Libya opens its doors to the West By Peter Popham The Great Leader did not disappoint. We might have asked for more, of course. He might have received us in his legendary tent, the one he brought to Brussels and Belgrade, his flock of camels cropping the grass outside. He would have done us all a favour if he had ridden into the conference hall on a white stallion, his troop of cruelly beautiful, Uzi-toting female commandos sprinting alongside. But presiding over the 30th anniversary of his little Green Book, he was the man we had come to see, imperious behind his big sunglasses, this modern Ozymandias in a gleaming white dinner jacket with a cape around his shoulders, his jet-black hair teased into the familiar modified Afro, like a member of Mott the Hoople. He published the Green Book on 2 March 1977, seven years after he seized power, aged 29, in a coup against King Idris, the Wests stooge. Since then, millions of copies have been distributed. It is Gaddafis answer to the Little Red Book of Mao, encapsulating what the colonel modestly calls the Third Universal Theory following (and hopefully supplanting) those of capitalism and Marxism. Its subtitle is The solution to the problem of Democracy, and the crux of Gaddafis insight into that problem is summed up in posters in the desert town of Sebha during the celebration: No representation without participation. Parliamentary representative democracy, according to Gaddafi, is a fraud; what he proposed instead was (as he put it in his speech on Friday) direct democracy as it was once practised in Athens through committees everywhere. Whether the Green Book revolution has lived up to its billing is a good question. But in one sense it has been a blistering success: it has made it impossible, ideologically and practically, for Gaddafis opponents inside Libya to organise themselves into political parties. Political parties introduce evil in society and society goes corrupt, Gaddafi declared on Friday. Any attempt at this needs to be got rid of. And so it came to pass. Given the clarity of the word from on high, and saturation levels of plainclothes cops at street level, dissidents of the Islamist or any other variety do not appear to have obtained a toehold in the country. When they have tried to in the past they have been vigorously dealt with. 2008 The Washington Post January 3, 2008 Thursday Libya Officially Welcomed Back To the U.S. Fold; Foreign Minister to Meet Rice Today By Robin Wright; Washington Post Staff Writer Abdel-Rahman Shalqam and his wife received a personal tour of the White House, an official escort on Capitol Hill and a luncheon with executives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum and Raytheon, as well as the U.S. trade representatives office. So began the official redemption of Libya yesterday, as the foreign minister of a country once equated with barbarism became that nations highest ranking official to visit Washington in 35 years. Shalqam continues meetings today with the secretaries of state, homeland security and energy, as well as the deputy secretary of defense, about ways to deepen ties between Washington and Tripoli, according to both U.S. and Libyan officials. At lunch yesterday, he virtually gushed about the importance of Libyan students getting an American education and U.S. companies doing business in Libya. Relations between the United States and Libya are very important to us. . . . We want a new friendship, he said, trying to reassure Americans that Tripoli does not back the Islamic militancy of other governments and groups now targeting U.S. interests in the Middle East. Our interpretation of Islamic heritage is completely different from the others who dont accept the philosophy of coexistence. The visit marks a dramatic reversal of decades of U.S. policy. * * * The New York Times September 6, 2008 Saturday Isolation Over, Qaddafi Meets With Rice By HELENE COOPER DATELINE: TRIPOLI, Libya For the first time in more than half a century, a sitting American secretary of state is in Libya. Condoleezza Rice arrived here on Friday to meet with the man whom Ronald Reagan famously called the mad dog of the Middle East. But that was then. Ms. Rice, after waiting at the Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel here for an hour as the Ramadan sun set, finally got word that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was ready to receive her at his Bab al Azizia residence the same compound bombed by American airstrikes in 1986 during the height of tensions with Libya. Amid a swarm of cameras and reporters, she walked into the receiving room where Mr. Qaddafi, clad in a long, flowing white robe, purple and gold sash, and a green Africa brooch, stood waiting to greet her. He didnt shake her hand; instead, he put his hand against his heart in a gesture that North African men often use to greet women, then motioned for her to take a seat. It was a very different Libyan leader, in the eyes of Ms. Rice and the Bush administration, from the man who had bedeviled six American presidents over the past four decades. As far as the Bush administration is concerned, the Libyan leader is rehabilitated, his country removed from the State Departments terrorism list, his debt to the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 on its way to being paid, Libyas stockpiles of chemical weapons destroyed and its secret nuclear weapons program dismantled. His initial chat with Ms. Rice could not have been more pleasant. He politely inquired about her trip; Ms. Rice thanked him for his hospitality. He asked about the hurricanes; she told him America had dodged Gustav but was bracing for Hanna. And that was it for the public chit-chat, as the Libyan authorities quickly shooed the press out of the room while Ms. Rice sat, smiling broadly. Quite frankly, I never thought I would be visiting Libya, so its quite something, she had told reporters aboard her flight to Tripoli. She said she had thought through what she planned to say to Colonel Qaddafi, and, not mentioning him by name, added, I look forward to listening to the leaders worldview. 2009 Scotland on Sunday August 23, 2009, Sunday Energy companies poised to exploit oil riches By Terry Murden, Business Editor THOSE who see oil as the motive behind all western dealings with the Middle East will no doubt be feeling vindicated by the deals currently being struck in Libya by British energy companies. Libya is already Africas leading oil producer and also has huge natural gas resources, but it remains largely unexplored because of the effects of repeated sanctions on the country. The UK government and British companies now joining the queue to invest are well aware that licences to explore depend on the goodwill of the Libyan regime. Lord Trefgarne, the former trade minister who chairs the Libyan-British Business Council, said last week that there would be benefits for British firms from the decision to release Megrahi. He said: In Libya, business matters and political matters are inextricably entwined. It was during a visit to Libya two years ago by the then prime minister, Tony Blair, that BP and its joint venture partner, the Libya Investment Corporation, agreed a deal that would see the company return to the country after a 30-year absence. BP withdrew from Libya in 1974 when its oil industry was nationalised. * * * The Herald (Glasgow) September 2, 2009 Wednesday Commercial relations continue to prosper behind the political scenes; By MICHAEL SETTLE LOCKERBIE is history, Saif al Islam, Colonel Gaddafis son, told this newspaper last week; not quite. The political ramifications are still reverberating and are likely to do so for some time yet. However, amid the diplomatic kerfuffle over the Megrahi release, Britains commerical relations with Libya are on the up. The latest correspondence has not disabused many of the idea that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was used as a pawn in the game of easing Libya, a one-time pariah state, back into the bosom of the international community. Whitehall thought that Tripoli, in ending its bad old ways and returning to the family of nations, would produce gains not only on the security front but on the commercial one, too. While Prime Minister Gordon Brown refuses to express a view on the Libyans release, in the background relations between London and Tripoli prosper. In the past year or so three ministers have travelled to Libya, which has become something of a magnet for foreign politicians wishing to pave the way for lucrative contracts. Although Prince Andrew, the UK Governments business envoy, had to cancel his trip this month to Tripoli to avoid giving credence to suspicions that trade lay behind the al Megrahi release, it will no doubt reappear on the diary once the dust has settled. Meantime, business is bubbling away nicely. Since Libya came in from the cold, imports and exports between it and Britain have been flourishing. >From 2004 to 2008, imports from Libya rose from GBP196m to GBP961m, almost 400per cent, and exports to Libya, mostly engineering equipment, rose from GBP216m to GBP280m, up almost a third. 2010 The New York Times March 1, 2010 Monday Unknotting Fathers Reins In Hope of Reinventing Libya By LANDON THOMAS Jr. TRIPOLI, Libya Prying open a closed economy is no easy job, especially if the country in question is Libya a nation that has spent more than two decades with its back turned to the world. It becomes all the more challenging when doing so means taking on the legacy of your father and fighting an entrenched bureaucracy with little interest in serious change. Yet that is the goal of Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the son and possible successor to Libyas leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, as he sets out to dismantle a legacy of Socialism and authoritarianism introduced by his father 40 years ago. It is hard work reinventing a country, he said in an interview last month, as he slouched on a sofa in his villa in the hills above Tripoli, picking at a tray of fruit including fresh dates brought to him by a black-suited waiter. But that is what we are doing. We will have a new constitution, new laws, a commercial and business code and now a flat tax of 15 percent. * * * The Washington Post May 26, 2010 Wednesday A Gaddafi for change with a chance to lead; Charismatic son tests patience of his father and hard-liners in Libya by Sudarsan Raghavan Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi relaxed in an opulent suite in a swank new hotel where, just two hours earlier, he had defied Libyan hard-liners by announcing the release of 214 Islamist militants in an effort at national reconciliation. The broad-shouldered 37-year-old has no official position in government. His power comes from one source: his father, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. Like so many of the younger Gaddafis initiatives in this North African nation, the releases brought into question just how much change his father and his influential clique will tolerate. After all, those freed included the leaders of a group that tried on three occasions to kill the Libyan leader. Saif Gaddafi, the leaders second-eldest son, is widely considered a possible successor to his 68-year-old father, who has ruled Libya for more than 40 years. He is competing with two brothers for the leadership, but many Libyans say he is the favorite, not least because of his commitment to political freedoms and free-market reforms. * * * The Christian Science Monitor July 12, 2010 Monday Libyas path from desert to modern country complete with ice rink; Libya, a one-time global pariah whose leaders son is sponsoring an aid boat to Gaza this week, has seen dramatic economic progress since the lifting of sanctions for funding terrorism, nuclear proliferation. Is this a model for Iran and North Korea? by Sarah A. Topol Correspondent Libya is on the rise. >From shiny new Hyundais cruising the capitals wide palm-lined boulevards to cranes dotting the Mediterranean skyline, the long-time pariah is getting a modern face. Seven years after the international community formally lifted the stringent sanctions it had imposed for state-sponsored terrorism, Libya has not only found its feet but is attracting international investment as well. There was huge interest by British and European countries in getting back, but the rewards in terms of contracts were quite slow in coming, says Sir Richard Dalton, who was serving as British ambassador to Libya in 1999 when the sanctions were initially suspended. [There's] now on the economic side a pretty unstoppable momentum . Its the place to be, says Dalton, now an analyst at Chatham House in London. Libyas nominal gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 16.7 billion dinars ($12.8 billion) in 1999 to 114 billion in 2008, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The year after the US lifted sanctions, the countrys economy surged 10.3 percent in 2005. Foreign direct investment increased more than 50 percent from $1.5 billion in 2000 to $2.3 billion in 2007, according to the World Bank. Although economic growth rates have lessened amid the global financial turmoil, Libya continues to expand. The IMF projects the Libyan economy will grow 5.2 percent in 2010. Ice rink and a 22-lane bowling alley With oil money filling government coffers, the state is undertaking massive infrastructure projects, doling out international contracts for ambitious housing developments, constructing a national railway network, and slowly opening the country to private foreign investment. 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