Libyan rebels formed a central bank and are negotiating to have the oil sanction lifted. Austrian economist Robert Wenzel concluded, “Nothing planned here in advance. Just something new, bureaucrats and rebels with keen financial foresight. That’s all. Nothing to see here, please keep on moving. I repeat the no fly zone is strictly a humanitarian effort.”
Another possibility is the oil sales could garner income for the rebels which could be used to purchase more weapons. International aid has prevented Gadhafi’s forces from overrunning the rebel forces, but has not defeated them. That currently remains dependent on the rebel forces.
What is true explanation? I do not know. I appreciate Wenzel’s interpretation of what is happening, but there is insufficient evidence to convince me it is the correct interpretation.
A new national oil company and a central bank quick as a flash? The U.S. Treasury’s sanctions against Libya conveniently contained a provision which states: “Should National Oil Corporation subsidiaries or facilities come under different ownership and control, Treasury may consider authorizing dealings with such entities.”
My big question is: How much were these rebels influenced, funded and/or agitated by Western interventionists prior to the rebellion? Well, this ought to give it away:
From the BBC: “The US Treasury has given the green light to sales of Libyan crude oil from rebel-held territory, saying rebels are not part of Col Gaddafi’s regime and therefore are not subject to US sanctions, AP news agency reports.”
You do realize that Wenzel was being sarcastic, right? There were Western advisors in Libya advising the rebels and US warships entered the Mediterranean to position themselves weeks before Obama announced the humanitarian effort.
Gaddafi has always proven himself more than willing to sell Europe all the oil and natural gas it wanted. In fact BP signed a huge contract just last November. Sure, he overcharged, but this was no problem as the higher prices resulted in more money for everyone involved (except the final customer of course). I am personally convinced this last “dirty little war” was thrown together in a hurry at a moment’s notice, with oil and natural gas not being the leading issue: buying them from Gaddafi or a revolutionary council is exactly the same thing. After all Europe is still buying crude (though in dwindling quantities due to Israeli pressures) from the Great Satan itself, Iran.
I have already related how this war reminds me of the invasion of Somalia in 1992: in short the US and their allies charged in like a raging bull without too much thought about what to do next. I call these “The Hilary Wars” from the US Secretary of State who still has to find a country she doesn’t want to bully, bomb and invade. In 1992 she “sold” her very reluctant husband to the idea of invading Somalia to “appease” the Afro-American wing of the Democratic Party and to show the world the US cares about the plight of Africa. It was a confused mess which cost thousands of lives and ended in a colossal failure. I believe Obama proved much more “amenable” than good ol’ Bill Clinton to the idea of bombing Libya. What were Hilary’s motivations is not hard to find. The first is a whitewash operation for the Arab world. The Mubarak crisis was handled poorly to say the least (mostly to avoid irritating the powerful Israel lobby) and pictures of US-supplied Saudi tanks rolling into Bahrain are all over the Internet. The second is a gesture of goodwill towards the European countries. European countries are keeping their troops in Afghanistan and, apart from the usual empty words, didn’t contest the invasion of Iraq and the idiotic pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian policies. The ECB has proven a faithful ally to the Fed. The Europeans (led by France and Britain) really, really wanted to intervene into Libya for their own motivations (mostly to replace the temperamental Gaddafi with a more “amenable” leadership) but lacked the means. Oil came second, just like Iraq.
The 1992 Somalia thing was done because Bush, having triggered the war in Bosnia by having James Baker and Warren Zimmerman sabotage the Carrington-Cutileiro settlement proposal, needed to appear humanitarian, but didn’t dare go into Bosnia figuring it would be too much of an investment. There were a few crises in Africa going on and he picked Somalia specifically, because he figured it would be easy and straightforward. By the time the Americans landed the worst of the food stortage was actually already over and things were starting to normalise of their own, jet the military buerocrats still found a way to deliver a PR debacle. Somalia 1992 at least had a clearly defined goal (get some humanitarian PR for Bush) and had been planned in advance. Libya by comparison is totally ad hoc.