Libya is OPEC's tenth largest oil exporter. There are a lot of dollars to be made out of this. Around the the northern city of Ras Lanuf an oil refinery processes 220,000 barrels a day. The country exports 1.7 million barrels of oil a day. Its gross domestic product is US$77 billion.
The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) - also owner of a London-based hedge fund - has invested more than $70 billion around the world. It's a major shareholder, for instance, in the Financial Times, Fiat and one of Italy's top soccer clubs, Juventus. LIA invests - and plans to invest - billions in Britain.
Cue to the European Union (EU) foreign ministers issuing the usual, bland, bureaucratic condemnation. At least Italian Prime Minister, "bunga bunga" idol and close Gaddafi pal Silvio Berlusconi, who had said earlier he didn't want to "disturb" his friend, had to qualify the massacre of civilians as "unacceptable" and profess he was "alarmed". To see Berlusconi literally kissing Gadhafi's hands, go here No less than 32% of Libya's oil exports go to Italy.
Then there is Washington's refusal to come out for Gadhafi's overthrow. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued the standard bland condemnation. Libyan-American scientist and activist Naeem Gheriany told the "Institute for Public Accuracy the Barack Obama administration is 'concerned' about the situation - there's no real condemnation in spite of the dire situation. People are being massacred in the hundreds, Gadhafi is reportedly using anti-aircraft guns to shoot people. In a few days, more people in Libya have apparently been killed than in weeks in Iran, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen and even Egypt (which has a much larger population) ... Even the oil cannot justify this silence."
Not to mention that Washington and Gadhafi have been the best pals on the "war on terror". Captured al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi - the object of a Central Intelligence Agency "rendition" to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Omar "Sheikh al-Torture" Suleiman, who duly tortured him into confessing to a non-existent Saddam-al-Qaeda weapons of mass destruction connection that then-secretary of state Colin Powell used as "intelligence" at his United Nations speech in February 2003 - was later tracked in Libya by Human Rights Watch just to end up his life as an alleged "suicide".
So the capitalists are very worried about the great revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. They feel their control and ownership and profits are threatened. And of course any time they see masses of workers on the streets they are worried. But it is not only the capitalists who have received a severe blow and are worried by the great revolutionary wave.
There is also al Qaeda. Its individual terror tactics have been shown to be totally ineffective compared to the mass uprisings. Also its source of new recruits has dried up as the revolutionary youth join the mass movements. One expert on al Qaeda describes the situation thus: "It's not just a defeat. It's a catastrophe. The worst thing that has happened since al Qaeda was created." This is confirmed by the fact that al Qaeda has issued statement after statement warning its supporters and the masses in general not to get involved with the mass movement. In one statement it rants against: "tricks of the un-islamic ideologies, such as filthy and evil secularism, infidelic democracy, and putrid idolic patriotism and nationalism." Yes al Qaeda is not too happy. As this same commentator pointed out the mass movement brought down the Egyptian regime in a few days something that al Qaeda was unable to do in years.
Support the revolution of the workers in the Middle East.
For a Socialist Federation of the Middle East.
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