James Petras & Robin E. Abaya: The Euro-US War on Libya

Many critics of the ongoing Euro-US wars in the Middle East and now in North Africa, have based their arguments on cliches and generalizations devoid of fact. The most common line heard in regard to the current US-Euro war on Libya's oil wells. On the other hand Euro, and US-Euro war on Libya is that it's all about oil. Of course, the ultimate goal is the seize of Libya's oil wells, though Euro and US government spokespeople defend the war by claiming it's all about saving civilian lives in the face of genocide, calling it 'humanitarian intervention'. Following the lead of their imperial powers, most of what passes for the 'Left' in the US and Europe, ranging from Social Democrats, Marxists, Trotskyists, Greens and other assorted progressives claim they see and support a revolutionary mass uprising of the Libyan people, and not a few have called for military intervention by the imperial powers, or the UN, to help the 'Libyan revolutionaries' defeat the Gaddafi dictatorship. These arguments are without foundation and belie the true nature of US-UK-French imperial power, expansionist militarism, as evidenced in all the ongoing wars over the past decade (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc.) What is much more revealing about the militarist intervention in Libya is that the major countries, which refused to engage in the war, operate via a very different form of global expansion based on economic and market forces.