All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
And I think like Brutality Inc, I'm going down to Mexico.
That Francis Boyle just scared the hell out of me.
All right.
Well, anyway, Pepe Escobar is on the line from over down there in Brazil.
Welcome back to the show, Pepe.
How are you doing?
Great to be with you again, Scott.
I'm very happy to have you here.
Everybody, you know, Pepe Escobar, he's the globe-trotting intrepid reporter for The Asia Times, writes about every conflict in the world and knowledgeably at that.
Speaking of which, what is going on in the world, Pepe?
Look, I've been even if I'm not in Libya, I'm swamped.
I'm in the middle of a Libyan swamp with information from all sides, fog of war.
And we still don't know exactly what's going on in Libya because the way I see it at the moment, it's going to be a defeat of Taliban, defeat of Saddam Bash party scenario.
I think this is what Qaddafi is banking on.
It's it is a strategical retreat.
There's no question about it.
We still don't know how many loyalists he has, either in Syria to his system or in his central system in the middle of the desert in central Libya.
But I think he's going for a guerrilla war operation that that's more or less clear.
We don't know how long it's going to last and we don't know he's going to have the firepower to conduct it.
But the new NATO protectorate, that's what Libya is now for that matter.
And, you know, an extra information.
In fact, the NATO base in Naples in Italy, I was confirming this with the Italians a while ago, they are redacting every communique issued by the TNC, the Transitional National Libyan Council.
Everything that they say passes through Naples.
It's redacted.
It's more or less organized.
And then the spin goes to all this so-called military experts and NATO experts and think tank analysts that you see on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera all the time.
You know, they are parenting what NATO is telling them to do out of Naples.
So it's completely ridiculous, you know, that they're selling this fiction that the rebels themselves, which is a motley crew of Al-Qaeda link Islamists, opportunists, defectors and people who are already on the payroll of Total from France and BP from England, that they organized this push towards Tripoli.
It's just completely bullshit.
Well, now, there's so many things to talk about here in this case.
I want to ask you, obviously, Libya is a pretty big place, but of course, part of that's the Sahara Desert and pretty uninhabitable, right?
How much room does he have to run and hide in, do you think?
Exactly.
The thing is, how is he going to move from Tripoli to Sirte, for instance, because the road is controlled by the rebels already.
You cannot go underground from Tripoli to Sirte, it's like 250 kilometers, you know.
And even to go to the middle of the desert...
Well, Saddam Hussein lasted for like, what, a year and a half or something?
Saddam...
Wasn't it the fall of 2004 when they got him?
He lasted from April to...
What was it?
November, October, November 2004.
Yeah, a year and a half.
Was it 2003 or was it 03 or 04?
04!
04!
So I wonder, you know, whether you think Gaddafi stands a chance like that, that he could last that long?
We don't know because, you know, nobody knows for sure the amount of support that he enjoyed, especially among the tribes that he bought, bribed or were close with for these past 40 years.
We know that there are problems with the Wafala tribe, which is the biggest one in Eastern Libya, a trouble in terms of Wafala and the rebels, and with the Obaidi tribe as well in Eastern Libya, because the guy who was the military commander in Syriac and Eastern Libya of the rebels, he was killed because, you know, some people, especially the Islamists inside the rebel command were saying that he was not, that he was a mole, that basically he was still a Gaddafi mole.
That's why he was killed.
And he was a military commander and he was from the Obaidi tribe.
So let's assume that Gaddafi can count on tribal support from three or four of the most important tribes in Libya.
This thing could go on for a month or even a year, but we don't know.
Have they ever dropped in a ton of exiles, CIA guys?
No, exile is impossible because nobody wants him.
Even Algeria already said they don't want him.
South Africa yesterday, they were saying they never sent a plane to Tripoli so Gaddafi could go to Johannesburg or Cape Town.
Hugo Chavez, two days ago, he said he still recognizes Gaddafi as the leader, but he didn't say anything about offering him asylum.
And it would be very complicated in South America because most South American governments wouldn't like that, especially the Brazilians and the Argentinians, you know.
So no, he has nowhere to go.
He's staying inside.
He already said that on the record many times.
And this is just like Saddam.
This is this is his terrain.
He knows it.
So if he has some modicum of support from tribal leaders, he could, you know, engage in some kind of guerrilla for months or even years.
But we are still speculating, Scott, because nobody really knows.
Just like nobody knew that Tripoli could fall in 24 hours.
OK, with a lot of NATO bombing, with those Qatari trained commandos that were sent by ship from Misrata to right in front of the Tripoli shore, in fact, we could never tell that this would last 24 hours only.
So we don't know if the guerrilla could last a few months.
Well, and then you mentioned al Qaeda there, it sounds to me like if there's, I don't know, one percent of the rebellion are actually made up of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars against the United States.
They're on the other side of those wars.
Then that is going to necessitate, quote, unquote, further occupation and intervention to make sure that the guys that we fought for don't win.
Even absolutely.
And it's this is part of the NATO master plan as well.
The fact that they were collaborating or these hardcore Islamists were collaborating with the collaborators, the Libyan collaborators who were collaborating with NATO.
You know, this motley crew, in fact, of course, because this is an extra reason for NATO to have boots on the ground, which could be NATO forces or better yet, the Arab monarchy.
So we can have, let's say, a NATO or UN peacekeeping force with the Jordanians, Qataris and Emirates people, for instance.
This would be relatively acceptable for the rebels, but they will be doing NATO's job, basically, which would be to fight this Islamist fringe or nebula, which is basically in Syria and in Eastern Libya itself.
So when Qadhafi was saying those outrageous things that rats are invading us and this is an al Qaeda plot, he was not totally wrong.
It's true, it's a minority, but these people are tribal people.
They are well connected.
They are heavily armed and their agenda is not democracy.
They want a sort of emirate in Libya.
And a lot of people in the Persian Gulf monarchies would also like the idea of having a friendly emirate in Libya.
But this was probably probably a partition of Libya.
Some parts of Eastern Libya will be turned into an emirate.
So can you imagine a scenario in Libya that would be similar to what to Afghanistan once again, instead of Northern Waziristan and Southern Waziristan, which were proclaimed as emirates two years ago or so, we could have an emirate in Eastern Libya near the desert as well, with a lot of Islamists heavily armed.
Can you imagine this?
So obviously there's going to be an inside guerrilla inside a major guerrilla as well.
So maybe we could be contemplating a scenario of two guerrillas, the Qaddafi loyalist guerrillas against the TNC and NATO and another guerrilla by the Islamists against the council itself and against NATO as well.
You've got to admit, the potential for a huge mess is a new occupation, a new occupation, a new insurgency, a brand new mission for the African command.
Sounds like a master plan to me.
Except that I'm not sure Hillary Clinton's qualified to do anything but teach junior high or something, so I don't know.
Well, hold it right there, Pepe.
We'll be right back after this break with Pepe Escobar, everybody.
OK, thank you.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and I'm on the phone with Pepe Escobar, author of Globalistan and Obama Does Globalistan, an intrepid globetrotting reporter for the Asia Times.
We're talking about the war in Libya and what looks like the current regime change going on in Tripoli now, finally, after almost six months of this war that was only going to take days, not weeks.
But I have to ask you, you know, picking up where we left off before the break there about how good this is for NATO's continued existence as far as they're considered and how beneficial this will be for those who would like to build a radical Islamist insurgency in North Africa.
And I was wondering, Pepe, whether you have an opinion as to whether Barack Obama is Ayman al-Zawahiri's agent or whether Ayman al-Zawahiri is Barack Obama's.
Those are your only two choices.
We should we should pose this question to al-Zawahiri itself in one of those al-Qaeda linked forums on the net.
Maybe we'll get an answer, you know, since he's not giving interviews at the moment.
But look, it's it's been spun in the US that this is a Barack Obama victory.
It's been spun in the UK that this is a David Lawrence of Arabia Cameron victory.
It's been spun in Paris that this is a Nicolas Sarkozy victory.
It's more like Sarkozy's war because he started the whole thing.
We have to remember Qaddafi's chief of protocol, Nouri Mesmari, this guy defected from Tripoli to Paris in October 2010.
Then he was approached by French intelligence.
They more or less concocted a military coup in Benghazi because Mesmari had a very, very close collaborator in Benghazi, one of the generals also defecting from the Qaddafi regime.
So this plan was oiled up in Paris in November, December 2010.
And the whole thing started with the first demonstrations in Benghazi in February 2011.
So this was more or less organized by the French.
And that explains why Sarkozy wanted to be the first one to send the Mirages to start bombing Libya after the UN resolution was approved.
And this explains why the French were instrumental in getting the UN resolution approved.
The Americans and the Brits, they joined the party by December, January, because they knew they saw the opening, the possibility, especially the commercial trading, reconstruction, oil business that would ensue.
And the vultures, like I wrote in a piece yesterday, the vultures are already there.
Everybody is absolutely trying to do deals within the next three or four days, actually, which is ridiculous.
And tomorrow, for instance, Berlusconi is meeting with the head of the Council in Milan, all this to say, look, we, the Italian Energy Diet, we want a large chunk of this thing.
And the French are desperate because Sarkozy, next week, he's going to hold an international conference about Libya in Paris, and obviously he'll press total interest.
So it was Sarkozy's war much more than an Anglo-American war.
But obviously, who actually won the war was the Pentagon.
And obviously, the information that the Pentagon was finally allowed by the Obama administration in early July to start relaying to NATO commanders and a better coordination between NATO, between the Qatari special forces, the British SAS on the ground, the French intelligence assets on the ground as well, which led to this operation, Operation Siren.
So, OK, these are the winners.
And of course, the Qataris, as we already mentioned, and the House of Saud, because they want a large reconstruction contract in Libya, as well as the Turks, which are already lobbying to reconstruct most of what NATO bombed.
So this is the lineup of the winners.
So Barack Obama...
Well, and that's just so far.
I mean, the question is, who's going to occupy the place?
I'm sorry?
Who's going to occupy the place?
Today's just today.
Let's talk about a year from now.
Who's administering the purple-fingered elections over there?
Well, look, Scott, it's a bit premature to speculate, because the Council and NATO, for the past 48 hours, they have been saying, no, there won't be any Western boots on the ground.
But very important, U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, he is in Benghazi already, and he was advising the Council on how to proceed next.
So there's going to be heavy West involvement, not necessarily boots on the ground.
And if the boot comes, like we were talking a while ago, there probably will be from the Persian Gulf monarchies, which will be more palatable, especially because they speak Arabic and they can communicate with the locals.
But the agenda will be set by London, Washington and Paris.
There's no question about it.
So in terms of occupation, NATO will rule with the U.S. in the discreet background, not to antagonize the American public for that matter, because you know better than I do.
The support in the U.S., last I heard, was 20 percent for this war inside the U.S., right?
Yeah, that's true.
Although, you know, if they escalate it, I'll probably make it more popular.
And, you know, politics stops at the water's edge and support your leader and all that stuff.
It's true.
I sure hope you're right about that, but it just seems like, you know, at what point can they say, OK, we're not involved over there at all anymore.
We're simply trading partners and friends and there's a new regime and we have nothing to do with it.
You know, at some point they're going to have to make sure, you know how they are, they're going to have to make sure up to their own expectations and whatever, that the government that they chose gets to stay the government of that place for the long term.
And that may take a lot of intervention.
There's no question about this.
That's where the Persian Gulf monarchies are very handy in this whole process.
And that includes the shadow army trained by Blackwater in the United Arab Emirates as well.
These guys definitely will be on the ground sooner.
Some of them already are.
Like those Colombians, the former death squad members from the Colombian government, for that matter, that they already trained in UAE and some of them were certainly there alongside the people who were trained by the Qataris inside Qatar.
And then they were shipped back to Libya.
So let's watch the Persian Gulf monarchy task force.
Let's put it this way, you know, this is going to be the front line.
If this thing gets really, really rough or if the transitional national council is bickering all the time, probably we'll have a more forceful Western intervention.
It's a story to tell, of course, we're still speculating, right?
Right.
Yeah, sure.
Sure.
I mean, anytime I ask you to tell me about a year from now, I know you ain't magic, just smart.
And, you know, it seems to me, Pepe, that, you know, the headlines over the past week have been or the past couple of days have been, you know, people in D.C. are now beginning to ask, now what?
And I'm going, man, come on, Pepe, you and I talked about this back in February and March is where are we going from here?
Let's follow the logical chain of dominoes that we can tell are going to fall down here, which included regime change.
I mean, before they even started the so-called no fly zone or whatever, I think we talked about this.
It's going to have to be regime change and it's going to have to be, you know, building up a new state and all these kinds of long term commitments and whatever like that.
They're only now asking that in D.C.
Is that an accurate report, you think?
Look, the BRIC country saw right through it from the beginning.
That's why they abstained from a UN resolution one nine seventy three.
At the time we were in touch with some diplomats working in New York for the BRIC countries and they told us, look, we're not going to vote for this resolution because it's open ended and we suspect this could be, you know, very diplomatic way of putting it.
We suspect this could lead to a sort of occupation or a direct intervention or regime change.
And that's exactly what happened.
And even the Germans, who also abstained from the vote, they were thinking among the same lines and not by accident.
We had this guy from one of the rebel oil companies two days ago on the record saying, look, we're going to have problems with companies from the BRIC country.
And he specifically named Russia, China and Brazil.
So it's so clear that, look, we're going to be friendly with the guys who helped us bombed our own country.
That's where the guys who abstained from, you know, this bombing operation, they're going to be sidelined.
There it is, you know, crystal clear.
Yep.
Yeah.
And it couldn't really get more clear than that.
That was a Reuters piece I saw, I think, last night or the day before about the Russians and the Chinese are losing out big time and somebody else, too.
I forgot.
Maybe it was the Brazilians.
Yeah, but Brazil, Petrobras, the Brazilian giant oil company, they don't have a lot of investment in the oil in the oil field in Libya, but there's a huge Brazilian construction company that does.
So probably the Turks and the Saudis are going to get the contracts that the Brazilian could fight for in the beginning.
You know, in terms of Russia, Gazprom has a lot of investment in prospective fields.
We don't know.
The Russians were themselves have been saying for the past 20 hours, we don't know what's going to happen to our contract.
Yeah.
Although the official spin from the council is we're going to honor all the contracts from the Qaddafi area, but we don't know.
It's too early to tell.
And obviously, Western companies will be applying a lot of pressure, especially any which is already applying pressure to tell from France and BP.
There's no any Americans, of course, and Exxon, Chevron, you name it.
Yeah, well, geez, at this point, I guess I'm happy that they're not just inviting the Russians in to help divvy up the spoils.
There's an alliance that I hope never really, you know, a little bit of separation of powers here.
Be grateful for what you can get, you know.
Yeah, but the Russians are more worried about Syria, Scott, because they have a naval base over there.
And that's one of the main reasons why they are they already said, forget about the U.N. resolution about Syria.
And they are talking behind the official channels with Assad to say, look, chill, take it easy.
Don't overdo the killing.
You name it.
So Syria is a much more important ally to Russia than Libya.
And the Chinese, they know that in the end they're going to get at least some contracts because they simply cannot antagonize China.
It's out of the question.
It'll be suicidal.
And they are especially because they already there.
They are in the technology export business.
They are.
They were building stuff as well.
Not only in oil, the only import, three percent of their oil imports come from Libya.
So Angola is much more important to Nigeria, much more important to China than Libya.
But the Chinese companies, there are more than 70 Chinese companies already working in Qaddafi's Libya.
So you can't you have to keep these contracts as well.
You know.
Yeah.
Well, again, we'll see how that goes.
All right.
Well, listen, we're already over time and I got to let you go.
But I really appreciate your time on the show as always today, Pepe.
Always a pleasure, Scott.
Take care.
All right, everybody.
That's Pepe Escobar from The Asia Times.
His new piece is called A Roving Eye.
Welcome to Libya's democracy.
Complete with your funny little ironic quotes there.
