What is the main reason behind the NATO intervention in Libya?
Bob Petrovich
Lives in Canada6y
Originally Answered: What is the main reason the US invaded Libya & killed Gaddafi?
When in doubt, follow the money.
-Gaddafi had devised plan to pay off the entire African debt and put Africa on solid economic footing (golden dinar). It was doable because the entire debt of Africa is paltry $400B and African countries can not pay it off themselves.
-Libya planned to become net exporter of food by using underground water distribution system. System was completed shortly before Libya was attacked.
-Libya planned to provide solar generated electrical power to Italy and Germany
-France and Italy owed billions to Libya and not intending to pay it back
-Libyan sovereign funds in European and American banks were looted
Gaddafi and many Libyans were savagely murdered during the armed robbery of Libya.
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Resource control
Some critics of Western military intervention suggested that resources—not democratic or humanitarian concerns—were the real impetus for the intervention, among them a journalist of London Arab nationalist newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, the Russian TV network RT and the (then-)leaders of Venezuela and Zimbabwe, Hugo Chávez and Robert Mugabe.[245][246][247] Gaddafi's Libya, despite its relatively small population, was known to possess vast resources, particularly in the form of oil reserves and financial capital.[248][better source needed] Libya is a member of OPEC and one of the world's largest oil producers. It was producing roughly 1.6 million barrels a day before the war, nearly 70% of them through the state-owned National Oil Corporation.[249] Additionally, the country's sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority, was one of the largest in the world,[250] controlling assets worth approximately US$56 billion,[251] including over 100 tons of gold reserves in the Central Bank of Libya.[252]
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Financial Heist of the Century: Confiscating Libya’s Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF)
By Manlio Dinucci
Global Research, April 24, 2011
Il Manifesto (translated from Italian) 22 April 2011
Theme: Global Economy, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: NATO'S WAR ON LIBYA
The objective of the war against Libya is not just its oil reserves (now estimated at 60 billion barrels), which are the greatest in Africa and whose extraction costs are among the lowest in the world, nor the natural gas reserves of which are estimated at about 1,500 billion cubic meters. In the crosshairs of “willing” of the operation “Unified Protector” there are sovereign wealth funds, capital that the Libyan state has invested abroad.
The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) manages sovereign wealth funds estimated at about $70 billion U.S., rising to more than $150 billion if you include foreign investments of the Central Bank and other bodies. But it might be more. Even if they are lower than those of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, Libyan sovereign wealth funds have been characterized by their rapid growth. When LIA was established in 2006, it had $40 billion at its disposal. In just five years, LIA has invested over one hundred companies in North Africa, Asia, Europe, the U.S. and South America: holding, banking, real estate, industries, oil companies and others.
In Italy, the main Libyan investments are those in UniCredit Bank (of which LIA and the Libyan Central Bank hold 7.5 percent), Finmeccanica (2 percent) and ENI (1 percent), these and other investments (including 7.5 percent of the Juventus Football Club) have a significance not as much economically (they amount to some $5.4 billion) as politically.
Libya, after Washington removed it from the blacklist of “rogue states,” has sought to carve out a space at the international level focusing on “diplomacy of sovereign wealth funds.” Once the U.S. and the EU lifted the embargo in 2004 and the big oil companies returned to the country, Tripoli was able to maintain a trade surplus of about $30 billion per year which was used largely to make foreign investments. The management of sovereign funds has however created a new mechanism of power and corruption in the hands of ministers and senior officials, which probably in part escaped the control of the Gadhafi himself: This is confirmed by the fact that, in 2009, he proposed that the 30 billion in oil revenues go “directly to the Libyan people.” This aggravated the fractures within the Libyan government.
U.S. and European ruling circles focused on these funds, so that before carrying out a military attack on Libya to get their hands on its energy wealth, they took over the Libyan sovereign wealth funds. Facilitating this operation is the representative of the Libyan Investment Authority, Mohamed Layas himself: as revealed in a cable published by WikiLeaks. On January 20 Layas informed the U.S. ambassador in Tripoli that LIA had deposited $32 billion in U.S. banks. Five weeks later, on February 28, the U.S. Treasury “froze” these accounts. According to official statements, this is “the largest sum ever blocked in the United States,” which Washington held “in trust for the future of Libya.” It will in fact serve as an injection of capital into the U.S. economy, which is more and more in debt. A few days later, the EU “froze” around 45 billion Euros of Libyan funds.
The assault on the Libyan sovereign wealth funds will have a particularly strong impact in Africa. There, the Libyan Arab African Investment Company had invested in over 25 countries, 22 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and was planning to increase the investments over the next five years, especially in mining, manufacturing, tourism and telecommunications. The Libyan investments have been crucial in the implementation of the first telecommunications satellite Rascom (Regional African Satellite Communications Organization), which entered into orbit in August 2010, allowing African countries to begin to become independent from the U.S. and European satellite networks, with an annual savings of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Even more important were the Libyan investment in the implementation of three financial institutions launched by the African Union: the African Investment Bank, based in Tripoli, the African Monetary Fund, based in Yaoundé (Cameroon), the African Central Bank, with Based in Abuja (Nigeria). The development of these bodies would enable African countries to escape the control of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, tools of neo-colonial domination, and would mark the end of the CFA franc, the currency that 14 former French colonies are forced to use. Freezing Libyan funds deals a strong blow to the entire project. The weapons used by “the willing” are not only those in the military action called “Unified Protector.”
Il Manifesto, April 22, 2011
Translated from Italian by John Catalinotto
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Aftermath
See also: 2012 Benghazi attack and Second Libyan Civil War
Since the end of the war, which overthrew Gaddafi, there has been violence involving various militias and the new state security forces.[295][296] The violence has escalated into the Second Libyan Civil War. Critics described the military intervention as "disastrous" and accused it of destabilizing North Africa, leading to the rise of Islamic extremist groups in the region.[297][298][237] Libya became what many scholars described as a failed state — a state that has disintegrated to a point where the government no longer performs its function properly.[299][300][301]
Libya has become the main exit for migrants trying to get to Europe.[302] In September 2015, South African President Jacob Zuma said that "consistent and systematic bombing by NATO forces undermined the security and caused conflicts that are continuing in Libya and neighbouring countries ... It was the actions taken, the bombarding of Libya and killing of its leader, that opened the flood gates."[303]
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Oil reserves in Libya
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Libyan oil fields, pipelines, refineries and storage
Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and among the ten largest globally[1] with 46.4 billion barrels (7.38×109 m3) as of 2010. Oil production was 1.65 million barrels per day (262×103 m3/d) as of 2010, giving Libya 77 years of reserves at current production rates if no new reserves were to be found.[2] Libya is considered a highly attractive oil area due to its low cost of oil production (as low as $1 per barrel at some fields in 2002),[3] low sulfur content, being classified as "sweet crude" and in its proximity to European markets. Libya's challenge is maintaining production at mature fields, while finding and developing new oil fields. Most of Libya remains under-explored as a result of past sanctions and disagreements with foreign oil companies.[4]
The majority (85%) of Libyan oil is exported to European markets.[5] 11% or 403 million barrels (64.1×106 m3) of oil imports to the European union in 2010 came from Libya, making it the third biggest exporter to the EU behind Norway and Russia.[6]
Cumulative production through 2009 was 27 Gbbl.[7] Given the stated number, this would be 65% of reserves.
The drilling of oil wells in Libya was first authorised by the Petroleum Law of 1955.[8] The National Oil Corporation is the largest oil company of Libya .
Gaddafi was using the oil revenues to ensure the stability of his rule by giving Libyan officials a percentage of the revenues. Gaddafi was afraid of an internal coup against him, so he resorted to this trick. Oil revenues were used as a bribe to officials to ensure their loyalty to Gaddafi.[9]
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