Libya – will the allies stop short of military occupation?

In just ten years we’ve witnessed two large scale US / Europe led wars resulting in long-term military occupation (Afghanistan, Iraq), one attempted large scale war (Iran caught in a pincer movement between occupied Afghanistan and Iraq) that never went ahead (partially due to widespread opposition within the US and Europe) and now we’re witnessing the beginnings of a large scale war and possible military occupation of Libya.

A supposed threat of terrorism was the false justification for invading Afghanistan. A supposed threat of WMDs was the false justification for invading Iraq and Iran – it worked first time around and failed the second because the falseness of the first instance was widely exposed. All three of these war efforts can easily be put into context by a read of US imperialism guru Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book The Grand Chessboard. They are wars for domination of the resource rich Eurasian Balkans, north east of Iran.

Now we’re being told that a humanitarian crisis is the reason for military actions in the Libyan airspace. It isn’t. US / European foreign policy strategists know that claims of WMD and terrorism by rogue states won’t win public support for any new world domination wars. They’re largely limited to covert economic warfare.

However, the new uprisings in several North African and middle Eastern countries have presented an opportunity to the global imperialists. Assisted revolution is the new war justification for imperialism by stealth. US and EU leaders are not interested in helping the Libyan people – their goal is access to natural resources in Libya regardless of who runs the country or how they treat their people. Gadaffi’s control of natural resources is what makes him an enemy.

The uprising in Libya (the National Transition Council)  isn’t simply a popular people’s movement. It is reportedly an alliance of 31 officers of the Gadaffi regime who have formed an opposition. Gadaffi’s own takeover of the country occurred in a similar way back in 1969. It isn’t guaranteed that the NTC won’t become another tyrannical regime, nor is it guaranteed that they will form a government that gives America and Europe easier access to oil. However, the chances of that oil access occurring under Gadaffi are remote and so, on the surface, it appears that the US / European assistance is equivalent to a bet. They’re rolling the military assistance dice to find out if it pays off in oil later.

Something that is unlikely to happen is that after the breaking of Gadaffi’s regime Europe and the US will simply walk away and wish the new government good luck with no strings attached. It’s much more likely that the assisted revolution will be incrementally shifted into ground force occupation. Various “unexpected” events will either be exaggerated or engineered to create an impetus for occupation (read up on the Basra Prison Incident in Iraq for example). The race to fill the power vaccuum in Libya could result in rivalries for power that could be exploited by western military / political strategists (note that China and Russia abstained in the no-fly zone vote at the UN Security Council).

We know the breaking of Gadaffi’s regime can be easily achieved with western globalist assistance. The western public and the international communities will rightly tolerate that. But in the next phase the US and European globalists will more than likely start testing the water for acceptance of military occupation – for that they’ll need Gadaffi to go violently wild both in and outside Libya and every effort will be made to provoke him into doing so. This is where public and international opinion will play it’s crucial role in the Libyan revolution. There are intelligent observers and critics who will see through any such engineered conflict tactics. The external war for public opinion regarding occupation will be as interesting as the internal Libyan revolution itself.

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